Unfettered
by mesmerizedbyceruleaneyes
Summary: Loveless-verse. Hijikata and Gintoki are paired up, much to their displeasure. How are they to cooperate when they can't even hold a civilized conversation? And what about that ominous prediction that all Fighter-Sacrifice partners become lovers? GinXHiji
1. How to Land an Unwanted Partner

_**For those without prior knowledge of the Loveless universe:**_

_**1.**__ In this universe, everyone is born with cat ears and a tail. These they possess until they lose their virginity. i.e. virginity goes, neko-traits go. –sigh-_

_**2.**__ There is a battle system in this universe, which in the anime (my sole provision of Loveless knowledge) is never thoroughly dealt with and explained. In other words, even if you don't know anything about the Loveless-verse, I don't know very much more than you. O.o Most of the rules of the Academy I describe in this fanfiction are made up by yours truly and have no precedence in the actual anime/manga._

_The only thing that I can be certain of is that battles occur between two teams at a time (never more, or at least not in the anime), and each team is made up of two members, the Fighter and the Sacrifice. The Fighter's job is to fight using words as weapons. The Sacrifice's job is to take the damage and order the Fighter around. The purpose of carrying out these battles remains unknown._

_Each team has a shared name, apparently mystically decided upon by fate, and the names generally follow the convention of ~less (e.g. Loveless, Restless, Faceless etc.) though exceptions do occur, usually in the case of particularly powerful pairs. These names appear in the form of tattoos on any random part of the body, though pairs will have the same name on the same part of their body. Fighters and Sacrifices usually don't know who their partner is until they get their shared name._

_**3.**__ Fighters and Sacrifices are trained in a school called the Shichisei Academy. Apart from those connected to Shichisei Academy, the rest of the population seems oblivious to its existence as well as those of the Fighters and Sacrifices._

_**Note:**__This fic takes place in the same warped timeline as Gintama, except without Amanto. i.e. kimonos and computers, simultaneously._

**Unfettered**

**How to Land an Unwanted Partner**

_-In which Hijikata blows up several times, Gintoki reads _Jump_, Kondou reads porn, Sougo is Sougo and nobody knows how to read English-_

The sun peeked nervously from behind a cloud. Below, all was silent. The wind whistled uneasily, while the birds were silent in apprehension. Nothing wanted to draw Hijikata's famous Glare of Death, especially not now.

Hijikata, on one of the rare occasions he was allowed to leave the Academy, had been fuming all the way to the convenience store in the small town nearest to the school. He _did_ appreciate the chance of getting out and about; however, he also _did_ resent the condition that he buy porn magazines for Kondou-sensei. He respected the man, really he did, but there were certain things that he simply couldn't – wouldn't – reconcile himself to. That Kondou-sensei would sink to the level of porn magazines… no, he didn't want to continue with that line of thought.

As before, he casually riffled through the more decent publications upon entering the convenience store, before slipping surreptitiously into the dingy corner where questionable material was stocked. Without looking at the covers – he was _pure_ – he grabbed a couple on his way past, hurriedly returning to the realm of respectability. The store owner shot him a questioning look from under raised brows as Hijikata went to pay for the magazines along with a bottle of mayonnaise (his alibi for going to the convenience store) but accepted the money without comment.

Already ill at ease due to the incriminating magazines, Hijikata all but fled from the knowing grin of the shopkeeper. He shoved the door open, wanting to make a quick escape – only to collide into another customer, hard enough to bounce off in a rather comic fashion. Flustered, he barely noticed the sudden burn at the nape of his neck.

The person into whom he had bumped blinked down at the fallen Hijikata, as though still processing what had happened. He scratched the back of his neck absently. "Oi… don't go around banging into people. It's not nice," he informed Hijikata.

Hijikata glared back at the newcomer. Everything about this person pissed Hijikata off – the silver, apparently naturally curly hair, the half-on-half-off kimono, the couldn't-care-less air about him. "You were in the way!" he exploded, lashing out at the world in general.

"Na… don't you see the sign on the door? It says _pull_," the silver-haired person said, with exaggerated patience. The door hung open beside him, flopping rather forlornly. "I may be a little slow on the uptake, but what you did was definitely a push, not a pull."

"I – you – oh what the hell," Hijikata swore, climbing back to his feet. Having done so, he realized that his mayonnaise and the magazines he had bought earlier were scattered on the floor. He scrambled to recover them.

"Porn?" The kimono-clad male tsked audibly. "And I thought you looked like the straight-laced sort. Guess looks can be deceiving."

"It's not mine!" defended Hijikata, knowing that his face was flaming and hating it.

The person – he seemed to be about Hijikata's age, or perhaps slightly older, eighteen or thereabouts to Hijikata's seventeen – grinned slyly. "It's okay, you know. Everyone goes through that stage. Ah, the joys of youth…" He dangled the last of Hijikata's magazines in front of the dark-haired boy's face.

A cooler part of Hijikata's mind noticed that the older boy had no cat-ears, and this somehow made him even more embarrassed. "I _said_, it's not mine!" he shouted, swiping at the magazine but missing as the older teen flicked it out of reach. "I was forced to buy this!"

"Oh? By who? Not your mother, surely," teased the silver-haired boy.

Hijikata's cheeks were hot enough to toast bread. "My sensei, okay? Give it back!"

"Goodness, what is the teaching profession coming to?" the older youth wondered aloud, allowing Hijikata to recapture the magazine.

"Shut up," growled Hijikata, stuffing the magazines unceremoniously into his bag before storing the mayonnaise with considerably more caution. "Just shut up and leave me _alone_, will you?"

"Sure thing, bratling," replied the silver-haired boy. Just as Hijikata was about to storm off, though, he added, "Perhaps you should know that you bought two of the same magazines."

Hijikata halted in mid-storm, froze in place for two seconds while lightning flashed in the dark clouds over his head, then back-pedaled to the store, shooting his strongest death glare at the infuriating stranger as he went past.

It was in the showers three days later that he first realized. Or rather, he didn't realize it himself – he was told.

Sougo, a fellow Fighter and (sadly) the closest person Hijikata had to a friend in this strange Academy (most of the others were plain scared of him), pointed it out when they were in the communal showers. Kondou-sensei believed that training the Fighters physically would help them in the stress of battle, but most of the students didn't see the logic there. Hijikata didn't think too much – if Kondou-sensei wanted them to do it, he'd do it without complaint.

Currently both Hijikata and Sougo were in the general dorms, where the as-yet-unpaired Fighters were housed. Once paired, they were given a room to share with their partners. It was one of the reasons why everyone looked forward to finding their partners.

"Oi, Hijikata," began Sougo, "when did you get your Sacrifice? You never told me. I'm so hurt."

Hijikata didn't pay him much attention at first, thinking that the brunette was just trying to get under his skin again with that deadpan voice of his. "Shut up."

"Seriously, who's your Sacrifice?" asked Sougo again. He sounded genuinely curious, which was enough to make Hijikata pay attention. "When did you get him? Or her? The meeting ceremony hasn't even been held yet." The meeting ceremony was when the Academy held a huge social event, inviting thousands of likely-looking youths to come and mingle with the Fighters in hope of finding their Sacrifices. It was to be held in a week's time.

Hijikata's cat-ears twitched, reflecting his surprise. "Sacrifice? What Sacrifice? Even though you sleep in class all the time, I was sure you knew that the ceremony is next week."

"That's what I said," retorted Sougo. "So why do _you_ have a Sacrifice already?"

"You're joking," said Hijikata flatly. "I don't have a Sacrifice. Quit screwing with me and get on with your bath. We're gonna be late for dinner."

"I'm not joking," protested the brunette. "You have your name – you must have a Sacrifice."

"What name? Where?" Hijikata demanded, twisting and contorting his body in an effort to see what Sougo was talking about.

If it were anyone else, they would probably have laughed at the so-called Demon Fighter bending into everything short of a pretzel. But Sougo being Sougo, he didn't even crack a smile. "There." Hijikata felt a poke to the base of neck, at the place where the spine became the neck. "You need a mirror to see it, I guess."

"Sougo, if you're screwing with my head…" threatened Hijikata, rubbing the spot under debate self-consciously.

"Nope, never," denied Sougo. "Serious. It says… wait, it's weird…"

"Weird? How? Why?" Hijikata tried, unsuccessfully, to twist his head 180 degrees and got a crick in the neck for his pains.

"It's not the traditional '-less' kind of name," explained Sougo. "It's… weird. And I can't read it. My English was never good."

Cursing under his breath, Hijikata rushed through the remainder of his shower and was out in record time, walking briskly (_not_ running) towards the mirrors at the sinks. Once there, he took a deep breath, swept his long hair out of the way and craned his neck to see whether the name Sougo claimed to be there actually existed. _If Sougo's screwing around me again I'll – _He didn't finish that thought, because right at the spot highlighted by his friend was a string of English letters, stark black against the pale skin.

Reflected in the mirror, the letters were reversed, and they made no more sense to Hijikata than gibberish. But the fact was that they were there. Definitely the tattoo. _The_ tattoo. The tattoo that spelt freedom from the general dorms and slavery to another being for the rest of his life.

Hijikata banged his head against the wall, very gently. Sougo, seeing him as he came out from the showers, inquired, "Want me to help? You won't get bloody that way." A pair of thirteen-year-old newbies stared at Hijikata, the now-cracked wooden wall, the sadistic grin on Sougo's face, and fled.

"What does it say?" asked Hijikata, when he had calmed down a little.

"No idea," replied Sougo blithely. "Told you earlier, I never was much for English. It definitely doesn't have the usually '-less' thing, though. I've seen those before."

"So helpful," growled Hijikata, getting his clothes. "I'll go ask Kondou-sensei later. I have to tell him anyway. Maybe one of the newbies being trained as a Fighter is actually a Sacrifice. It'd be a huge mess-up."

A few hours later, after dinner, Hijikata went to find Kondou-sensei. Kondou-sensei, of course, reacted dramatically. If he hadn't, Hijikata would have suggested the in-house doctor have a look at him. A more dramatic person did not exist, as far as the dark-haired teen knew.

"_Tosshi_! How could you go and get yourself a Sacrifice just like that? And without letting me know, either!" Kondou-sensei was on the verge of tears. "I thought you promised that you wouldn't do anything like _that_ before the ceremony! Goodness, Tosshi, I must have given you a rotten upbringing!"

There was a short pause as Hijikata worked out what his sensei was talking about. "Um, Kondou-sensei, I still have my cat-ears."

This brought the older man's hysterics to an abrupt halt. "Oh. Ah. So you do." Kondou-sensei started laughing, loudly, to cover up his mistake. "Ahem… if you've still got your cat-ears, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I thought you were coming to me for a heart-to-heart talk about –"

"I don't know who my Sacrifice is," interrupted Hijikata, before his sensei could start on the planned lecture (probably about the birds and the bees, _again_). "I only found out that I have the name today."

"What name is it? We might be able to track down your Sacrifice if you know the name," said Kondou-sensei.

Hijikata looked down. "Well… I don't know. I can't see it myself, and Sougo says he doesn't know how to read it."

"Oh dear, where _is_ it? It must be in some very obscure place," postulated the older man, waggling his eyebrows in a way that left Hijikata feeling _very_ disturbed. "Show me?"

Hijikata tugged the back of the collar of his kimono, turning as he did so. "It's just there."

"Oh." Kondou-sensei sounded vaguely disappointed. "No wonder you can't see it."

"What is it?" inquired the teen.

Kondou-sensei coughed. "Well…"

Hijikata's hopes dropped. He shouldn't have expected this particular sensei to be good at English. "Never mind," he said, pulling his kimono back into place. "It's okay. I don't mind waiting to find out."

Kondou-sensei looked appropriately shamefaced. "I'm sorry. Do you have any idea who it might be?"

"I was thinking, maybe some of the new Fighters –" began Hijikata, but Kondou was shaking his head.

"The people admitted as Fighters are definitely Fighters," said the older man with conviction. "The higher-ups analyze you kiddos in such detail, it scares me. You didn't meet anyone outside of the Academy?"

"No," replied the youth at once. "You know we barely get out of here."

"Didn't I send you out just a few days ago?" Kondou-sensei pointed out. "I'm quite sure I did… yup, here are the new magazines." Having quickly rummaged through a innocent-looking cardboard box, he brandished one of the lewd publications Hijikata had bought on his request. "You definitely went out. Did you meet anyone?"

"No," denied Hijikata. "Just the shop owner. If he was my Sacrifice, I'd have connected with him earlier. You send me every two months or so, whether I want to go or not."

"Hmm… really? You didn't bump into anyone on the way? You didn't get into a traffic accident? You weren't swarmed by rabid fans?" Kondou-sensei leaned forward, uncannily like paparazzi on to a new, juicy news scoop.

Hijikata sweatdropped as the possibilities became ever more far-fetched. "No, I really –"

– _Curly silver hair, wickedly glinting eyes, a lazy hand scratching the back of his neck –_

Oh no.

Not him.

It couldn't be him.

Everyone in Shichisei Academy knew that almost all Fighter-Sacrifice pairs ended up as lovers. Exceptions were very, very rare – once-a-century rare. The thought of being that arrogant silver-haired man's lover made Hijikata's tail bristle with simultaneous revulsion, fear and anger.

"It's _not_ him!" exploded Hijikata.

Kondou-sensei blinked. "What?"

"Wh- I said that out loud?" Hijikata's face flushed involuntarily. "Sorry, sensei, it was nothing."

But there was no stopping his sensei now. "There _was_ someone, wasn't there? Don't deny it, Tosshi! This is important! And if you deny it anyway, I'll go to the store myself and find out –"

The idea of Kondou-sensei standing in the convenience store, terrorizing every single customer to pass through its doors, made Hijikata blanch. "No! I – I'll go find him myself!"

"Good boy, Tosshi!" exclaimed Kondou-sensei, exuding waves of fatherly pride. "I knew I could count on you!"

Hijikata sighed heavily, knowing that he had just been well and truly manipulated. "So… I go there, find him and bring him back?"

"That's good – no wait, it's not." His sensei looked troubled. "How do we explain how you managed to get a Sacrifice before the meeting ceremony?"

"Don't ask me!" exploded Hijikata, now royally pissed off. "You're the sensei, aren't you? You handle it!"

"Tosshi…" Kondou-sensei turned pleading eyes onto his favorite student. "Please?"

There was no help for it; when faced with those eyes, Hijikata couldn't find it in himself to harden his heart. "Fine."

"Thank you, Tosshi!" Kondou-sensei's entire face lit up at once. "You'll come up with a good plan, won't you!"

Hijikata rubbed his temples. He could feel a migraine coming on.

This time, the sun dared not show even a sliver of itself from behind the clouds. The wind didn't have the courage to raise the slightest breeze, and the birds huddled deep in their nests, hoping that the thundercloud over Hijikata's head would miss them as he passed. At this point, there was no Glare of Death to avoid – it was an entire malevolent Aura of Death that annihilated all that breathed it.

Hijikata stormed into the convenience store, emanating his most dangerous vibes yet. The shopkeeper, unheeding, shot out from behind the counter. "Goddamn it, can't you read? The shop's still closed, jerk!"

"Is that silver-hair natural perm guy coming today?" demanded the teen, completely ignoring the shopkeeper's anger.

"What did he do to you, steal your porn magazines? IF he did, it's nothing to do with me, so just get out!" shouted the older man.

It was the absolute worst topic to address in front of Hijikata at that point. "Shut up!" he roared. "Is he coming today?"

"Find out yourself!" yelled the shopkeeper. "I've got better things to do than keep track of customers!"

Hijikata was about to blister the older man when another voice sounded from the doorway. "Oi, oi, what's all this about?"

Whirling around, he saw the very person he was searching for – silver natural perm, blue-and-white kimono, eyes like a dead fish and, to make things even better, a finger firmly up his nose. Hijikata's bad mood spiked; he wanted nothing more than to punch this man's half-picked nose through to the other side of his head.

"Do you youngsters not know how to read these days?" exclaimed the shopkeeper. "The shop is closed, so get the fcuk out!"

The silver-haired teen gave Hijikata a once-over before lazily removing his finger from his nose. He casually blew the green treasure he had obtained towards the shopkeeper. "My, my, if it isn't the bratling who claimed he wasn't buying porn for himself. I'd've thought you'd've done something about _those_ by now." His mocking gaze flicked up to Hijikata's cat-ears, which flattened instinctively under that sadistic gaze.

"I'm eighteen in nine months, I'll have you know," Hijikata ground out. Now that he had found the person he had come to look for, he was momentarily stumped. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Na, in the civilized world, people give their own names before demanding to know others'," commented the older youth, leaning against the doorframe, which creaked mournfully in vain protest.

"Are you two ignoring me?" the shopkeeper wanted to know. "Get out of here, or I'm not selling either of you any more porn or _Shounen Jump_! And I'll have you pay for that door, too!"

At this, the silver-haired boy looked alarmed. "Okay, okay, boss, we're leaving as soon as I buy the latest _Jump_."

Hijikata watched the quick transaction with mounting discomfort. "You're not going! I'm not done with you yet!"

"You wanted something?" The other teen blinked at him.

"Yes, I do!" Hijikata all but shouted.

"Well, can it wait? I want to read my _Jump_," explained the silver-haired youth.

Hijikata glowered. "No, it can't wait."

"Is that so?" The kimono shifted as he shrugged. "Too bad, then." He turned to walk out of the shop.

"You're not going anywhere," growled the dark-haired teen, grabbing that infuriatingly trailing sleeve of the kimono.

The silver-haired teen glanced back at him with raised eyebrows. "Oh well, I guess you could come along if you're so dead set on it. By the way, the name's Sakata Gintoki."

"Party?" Gintoki stared at him incredulously. "You got so uptight about inviting someone to a _party_? And why _me_, of all people? All I did was pass comment about your tastes in porn."

Hijikata could feel his blush getting worse. "Kondou-sensei… wants you to come and see the school," he fumbled. "He says you're in the database, or something –"

Gintoki snorted. "For the sake of Buddha's ever-expanding belly-button, you don't have to try so hard to come up with a lie. Though I never would've thought you swung that way. Those porn mags were definitely straight. And I'll let you know now – don't expect me to indulge you. _I_'m straight, even if you aren't."

"I am _not_ gay!" exploded the dark-haired teen, loud enough to attract glances from passersby. "How dare you –"

"Woah, woah, chill man! Geez, why are you so goddamn uptight about every little thing?" Gintoki flipped open his _Jump_ magazine. "Anyway, whoever taught you manners ought to know they failed miserably. Who the hell yells at the person he's trying to invite to a party?"

Hijikata fumed silently for several seconds, intensely enough to emit steam, before he flung himself back into his seat on the bench next to Gintoki. They were in the tiny public square, and Hijikata had less than half an idea as to how he had ended up there. "Our school holds its annual ceremony to look over people and choose new students," he explained, with as much patience as he could muster at that point – which wasn't exactly much. "Most of the invitations were already sent out, since it's being held the day after tomorrow, but Kondou-sensei said I must invite you too."

"Mm." The silver-haired teen was firmly glued to his _Jump_. "Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah."

Hijikata swiped at the _Jump_. "You're not listening at all!" he accused.

"Ah? What? Yeah, that's great. I agree," mumbled Gintoki, somehow managing to skillfully evade Hijikata, spew meaningless rubbish and keep his eyes on the manga, all at the same time.

For the second time in as many days, Hijikata could feel the beginnings of a migraine. Just his luck, to end up with an uncooperative Sacrifice like this. "Oi, Gintoki!"

"Yeah, yeah, amazing. You're absolutely right," responded the other youth, turning a page of the manga. "That bankai's pretty darn cool."

A vein pulsing dangerously at his temples, Hijikata contemplated bashing Gintoki's head until it wouldn't hold water. _To hell with the consequences, this guy is pissing me of so damn bad, he puts Sougo to shame._

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him – perhaps he'd been mistaken, and Gintoki wasn't his Sacrifice at all. If that were the case, there was absolutely no need to put himself through all this pain. With that thought in mind, he grabbed at the back of Gintoki's kimono, planning to check whether the silver-haired teen had the same name-tattoo as him.

"Hey! What's your goddamn problem?" Gintoki dodged away the moment he felt Hijikata tugging at his kimono. "I thought you said you weren't gay?"

"I'm not!" Hijikata turned, trying to get into a better position so that he could keep his hold on that accursed kimono. "There's just –" he grunted with effort as Gintoki employed a particularly strong twist maneuver "- something I need to confirm!"

"Oh yeah? And what might that be? You're starting to scare me, you know," Gintoki informed him, somehow keeping his eyes on his _Jump_ even as the rest of his body twisted and swerved to get away from Hijikata. "It's broad daylight, we're in public, and damn it I already told you I'm not gay, and if you're looking for something like _that_, I heard that the guy down the street –"

"_I am NOT gay_!" shouted Hijikata, fed up. He was a third dan black belt in both karate and judo, yet the silver-haired teen was evading him with annoying ease. "And no, I'm not looking for anything of the sort! I just want to know whether you've got the tattoo!"

"Tattoo?" At this, Gintoki finally tore his eyes from his _Jump_ to look at Hijikata, frowning. "How would _you_ know – oh, damn. I should've known it was _you_."

Hijikata's hopes plummeted like a stone. "So you _do_ have it?" Despite his attempt to keep up appearances, his tail drooped.

"Hell I do. Shocked me pretty damn bad when Kagura started screaming about bugs stuck to my neck." Gintoki rubbed the spot under question, almost self-consciously. "I was almost happy to find that it was just a tattoo. How the hell did you get it on me? And what the hell does it say anyway? It sure doesn't look like a picture. I can't see it myself, and none of us are any good with English."

"God, does nobody take English classes in school nowadays?" grumbled Hijikata. "Show me."

"You could've just _asked_." Gintoki pulled the collar of his kimono and that of the shirt underneath downwards.

Hijikata quashed the bubble of nervousness that struggled to rise. He really _did_ want to see that name, the name that bound Fighter and Sacrifice together for life, a name that belonged to only two people in the world. Leaning closer, he read the name tattooed in dense black on the smooth skin just below the most prominent spine-neck bone.

_Unfettered._

The dark-haired teen rocked back on his heels. _What the hell?_

"Well? What does it say?" Gintoki wanted to know.

"'_Unfettered_'," he answered, pronouncing the word awkwardly in English. "I think it's supposed to mean… free," he added in Japanese.

"What a nice word. Right then, you can go away." The silver-haired youth made a shooing motion at Hijikata. "I want to read my _Jump_ in peace."

Hijikata growled, remembering that he was supposed to be pissed. "No, I'm not going away until you agree to come to the Academy."

"Shichisei is a boarding school, right?" inquired Gintoki, nose back between the pages of his manga. "_And_ it's supposed to be really exclusive. Normal people like me don't have that kind of money."

"You can attend for free," said Hijikata through gritted teeth. "You've got the tattoo; they have to let you in."

"What the hell's with that?" Gintoki began digging his ear. "Never heard of such a weird admission criteria. Get a random tattoo of a random English word and you've got a passport to one of the most exclusive schools ever? Gimme a break."

Hijikata was at a loss for words. He couldn't explain about the Fighter-Sacrifice pairs; that would just cement Gintoki's impression of him being a loony. He had been planning to leave that to Kondou-sensei or even Principal Matsudaira. He hadn't thought it would be so difficult to persuade Gintoki – most people were overjoyed to be invited to attend Shichisei Academy. "Er…"

"'Sides, I've got kids to look after," continued Gintoki, as though he hadn't noticed Hijikata's silence (he probably hadn't, as immersed as he was in his _Jump_). "Kagura and Shinpachi would be absolutely devastated if I left them."

"You've got _kids_. _You_." Hijikata goggled at the silver-haired teen. "You're not even twenty!" Twenty was the legal marriage age in Japan.

"I'm nineteen, so it's not that far in the future. Anyway, they're not mine." Gintoki, apparently finished with his ear, transferred that finger to his nose. "Kagura's kind of a sister, and Shinpachi is my employee."

"You're an _employer_?" demanded Hijikata.

"Yeah. Yorozuya Gin-chan, at your service," said Gintoki, his voice absolutely deadpan.

"Jack of all trades? You don't look like you've done a day's work in your life!" scoffed Hijikata. "Anyway, bring them along. Think of this as a job. Your payment is room, board, three meals a day, and attendance at Shichisei Academy."

Gintoki's tone made bored look interesting. "I'm not planning to go back to school. Hell, I graduated only three years back."

The dark-haired teen resisted the urge to do something childish like stamp on Gintoki's boots. It would have been very bad for his image. "Think of your… kids. This Kagura and Shinpachi. I'm sure Shichisei would be a much better alternative to whatever schools they're attending now."

"They don't attend school. I can't afford school fees." Gintoki turned a page of the manga.

"Like I said, Shichisei will give you all free room, meals, and schooling. They'll receive a wonderful education." Hijikata mentally excused the many white lies spilling from his mouth. He needed Gintoki to come to Shichisei. Fighters who had bonded with a Sacrifice would have their power halved in battles fought without their Sacrifice. If he wanted to keep his reputation as one of the strongest Fighters ever, he needed his Sacrifice, and thus he needed Gintoki, as irritating and uncooperative as the silver-haired teen was.

"Talk to me after I'm done with my _Jump_ and I'll consider it." Gintoki reburied himself within his _Jump_, Hijikata's protests to no avail.

_This fanfic is dedicated to Kid9535_

**A/N: ****Eh… -dodges rotten vegetables- maybe Loveless-verse wasn't such a good idea. But it's the best I could come up with, Kid-chan. Bear with me. I hope they weren't **_**too**_** OOC. As I said before, they tend to argue. A lot. They run away with me; what's meant to be only 5 pages ends up 10 because of all the argument before anything gets done. Gah. This isn't my best fic by quite a bit, but as far as Gintama and GinXHiji is concerned, I guess this is the best effort.**

**Actually, now that I've been searching for inspiration, there really isn't as many GinXHiji fanfics as I expected. The Jouishishi (TakasugiXGinXKatsura) seems to be more popular. But GinXHiji is cute and deserves love, so this is my humble contribution ^^**

**Next chapter will be up in a while. Rating will go up as requested =D working on smexx scene, it's much harder than it seems. –sigh– This will probably be a three- or four-shot. Again, longer than expected, due to reasons stated above.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading this =) please ****review!**


	2. How to Become an Adult

**How to Become an Adult**

_-In which Hijikata gets screwed in more ways than one, Gintoki gets his foot in his mouth, Katsura gets an appearance and Sougo gets porn for everyone else-_

In the end, it took a promise of a monthly salary in addition to all the previously listed benefits to persuade Gintoki to attend the meeting ceremony. It helped that Kagura and Shinpachi were so enthusiastic about going.

Much to Hijikata's surprise, Sougo and the very violent Kagura turned out to be a pair, though it was quite amusing that Kagura was the Sacrifice. They found out after the two started tussling over the last piece of cheesecake, culminating in a full-out fistfight. Once the two were pulled apart, they discovered a tattoo spelling the word _Reckless_ on the backs of their right fists. Hijikata had had to laugh at that.

Shinpachi had brought his older sister Otae, who found her old friend Yagyuu Kyuubei and started chatting about the old days when they were children. A little accident with the fruit punch later, both found the name _Faceless_ branded on their left upper arm. Kondou-sensei, who had gone starry-eyed the moment he clapped eyes on Otae, was distraught.

Shinpachi, meanwhile, accidentally walked into a pretty young thing whose name, Hijikata vaguely recalled, was Otsuu. She was very popular among the younger Fighters. Next moment, the name _Soundless_ was scrawled between their collarbones. Shinpachi, about to voice his refusal as loudly as he could, lost his voice upon having a closer look at Otsuu. The look in his eyes was too similar to that in Kondou-sensei's when he looked at Otae. Hijikata wanted to puke.

Things happened fast – too fast for Hijikata's comfort. One morning he was hanging out with Sougo in the general boys' dorms; the next, he was struggling to keep his temper against his new, extremely annoying roommate, Gintoki. He _did_ enjoy the room itself, with its increased privacy, more comfortable beds and greater space. He did _not_ enjoy the fact that this came at the price of putting up with the self-proclaimed Yorozuya.

"Oi, Yorozuya." Hijikata poked the other teen. "Get your fat ass out of bed. No breakfast after eight, Principal Matsudaira should've mentioned it."

"Nnngh…" Gintoki cracked one drowsy eye. Hijikata noted, not without surprise, that Gintoki's eyes were not black as he had originally assumed, but dark red. "Just five more minutes…"

"I'm not saving food for you," warned Hijikata. "You get to starve till lunch."

Gintoki groaned sleepily, taking his time to stretch. "You're supposed to take care of me, _Fighter_."

"You're supposed to be able to take plenty of pain, _Sacrifice_," retorted the long-haired youth. "Hurry up, or I'll make you feel some."

"I'm not gay," mumbled Gintoki, rolling out of the bed with a thump. "Why the heck don't you lot use futons like normal people?"

"I don't have to be gay to want to inflict pain on you. In fact, I think most of the people who know you would've wanted to punch your face in at least once. And don't complain so much," admonished Hijikata. "You're annoying enough as it is. Complaining just makes it worse." Bickering the entire time, the pair eventually made their way to the breakfast hall (with time to spare, Hijikata's dire predictions notwithstanding) and later to their new classroom for their first lesson in paired battle.

"What's with all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, anyway?" muttered Gintoki as they entered the large classroom. "Fighter and Sacrifice and all that nonsense. Come to think of it, nobody ever said anything about textbooks. What the hell do you lot study?"

Hijikata struggled with his (always short) temper. "Weren't you listening to Principal Matsudaira's explanation?" He hadn't himself, being a Fighter who had been in the Academy since he was six – the Academy and its oddities weren't at all strange to such young children. He'd eventually come to terms with it, because Kondou-sensei was sure the Academy had a purpose in training the Fighter-Sacrifice pairs, even though nobody knew what it was. However, he had also seen no obvious problems from the previous batches of Sacrifices, so he had assumed that Principal Matsudaira's explanation was adequate.

"Nope. Drifted off after the first five minutes or so. God the man's _boring_; he damn near bored the pants off me!" Gintoki's voice was loud enough that the other pairs around them turned to look. Hijikata, mortified, quickly hushed the silver-haired teen.

"Shut up! Your voice is loud, dammit!" hissed the irate Fighter. "Anyway, you should've just listened and you might've heard something useful. That would've prevented everyone from seeing a sight that should be reserved for mental torture."

"Now, you did not just say that," began his Sacrifice. "I may have naturally permed hair, but that does not give you the right to insult –"

"What the hell does permed hair have to do with anything?" shouted Hijikata, finally losing the internal battle with his temper. "If you're so free that you can worry about having permed hair, can't you use some small portion of that small brain of yours to _listen_ when people try to tell you something important? God, you're so –"

"Hijikata-kun, please restrain yourself," interrupted a new voice. It was calm, male and commanded attention. The ponytailed Fighter immediately spun around to face this newcomer.

"Takasugi!" That was Gintoki. "What the hell… so _this_ is where you've been all this time!"

_Takasugi…?_ Hijikata took in the brightly patterned kimono, the long pipe suspended languidly from one hand, and the eye-patch for one long moment before finally recognizing this person. "Excuse me for having caused such a disturbance in the class, Takasugi-sensei!" He quickly sank into a deep bow of apology. _Crap…_

"_Sensei_? Good god, what have you been doing? What crazy place is this, that _you_'re a teacher here?" Gintoki pondered aloud.

"Sakata Gintoki?" Takasugi raked the silver-haired teen with his eyes. "Why, it _is_ you. Who is your Fighter? Hijikata-kun?"

"Yeah. Wait, if you're teaching here, does that mean you have that weird tattoo too?" inquired Gintoki.

Sneaking a peek from his bowed position, Hijikata noticed that the famously enigmatic teacher of the paired Fighters was indeed not much older than himself, and very possibly about Gintoki's age. That Gintoki knew someone in the Academy came as a surprise to him, but he dismissed it as unimportant – the Academy recruited children from all over the country, after all.

Meanwhile, the two, who appeared to be old acquaintances, if not friends, were still talking. "Yes, indeed I do have a name-tattoo," acknowledged Takasugi (somehow Hijikata's mind couldn't add the –sensei suffix to the youthful Takasugi, despite knowing that the one-eyed man was his new teacher). Pulling aside the left half of his kimono (several girls squeaked and giggled), Takasugi revealed dark letters printed just below the collarbone, spelling the name _Painless_. "What about you, _Shiroyasha_?"

Gintoki laughed. "That name is dead and rotting. Apparently, I'm called _Unfettered_." He fumbled with his clothes to show the tattoo to Takasugi. "Can't beat that, can you?"

Clearly he had meant it as a joke, but it didn't turn out that way. Everyone knew that pairs without the _–less_ suffix were generally stronger that those that had it. Gintoki, in his foolish attempt to be self-deprecating, had come off as irrepressibly arrogant.

The already quiet classroom was suddenly as silent as a grave. Takasugi's eyes narrowed. "Just because I was your friend once doesn't give you the right to show me disrespect, much less now that I'm your teacher."

"Eh? What? What did I do? Come off it, Takasugi, it was just a joke!" protested Gintoki.

Hijikata, who had been so shocked by Gintoki's insensitive remark that he'd straightened from his bow, now grabbed his Sacrifice and, gripping a fistful of silver hair, forced Gintoki's head down even as he bowed for the second time in about as many minutes. "Excuse us, Takasugi-sensei. Gintoki-kun is still uninformed about much of the Fighter-Sacrifice customs and laws."_ I'm gonna make you pay later, Gintoki!_ he mentally screamed at the older youth.

He sensed, rather than saw, Takasugi's nod. "As long as you know it." The kimono swished as Takasugi walked away. "I'm going to take attendance. When I call your pair names, please let me know that you're here. _Tearless_?"

Hijikata dragged Gintoki with him as he attempted to retreat into the crowd. "You idiot! Of all things to say – and he's our new teacher, dammit!"

"What the hell is your problem? Can't take a joke, can you?" grumbled Gintoki. "What _did_ I say that was such a huge problem, anyway?"

By the time he finished his _very_ angry explanation, all the pairs' names had been called. Takasugi put down the attendance folder with a snap. "Alright, new pairs, I'll tell you right now that the only way to learn paired fighting is to fight. No theory; all the theory you need, you've already learnt. You're going to fight straightaway." He glanced down at the list of pairs. "_Noiseless, Faceless. Reckless, Tearless. Senseless_…"

As he rattled off the names, pairs came forward, found their adversaries, and then retreated again. More than a few Fighters and most of the Sacrifices looked shocked that they were to fight immediately. Hijikata and Gintoki, seeing the two fragile girls who were up against Sougo and Kagura, winced in sympathy.

At last, they heard their name. "_Unfettered…_" Takasugi smiled eerily. "As a welcome present, you get to face us – _Painless._"

Hijikata blanched. Takasugi was infamous not only because he was enigmatic, but also known as a Fighter prodigy, with a very good Sacrifice. He and Gintoki could barely tolerate each other, let alone fight together. They were going to be cooked alive.

"Just wait while my Sacrifice makes his way here," continued Takasugi, coming out from behind his desk. The smile he wore was predatory, very much like that of a crocodile eyeing its dinner. Unless Hijikata was much mistaken, Takasugi and Gintoki had some bad blood between them.

"Any words of wisdom?" asked Gintoki quietly. "That asshole Takasugi doesn't usually let people off easily in any fight, let alone one as strange as this seems to be."

"I've never done paired fighting before," hissed Hijikata. "We're gonna have to wing it. Just… get ready for pain."

"What sort of help is that?" protested Gintoki. Then, spotting the newcomer, he exclaimed, "Zura!"

"It's Katsura," corrected the long-haired man who had just arrived. "So it _is_ you, Gintoki. It's been a while."

"God, _you're _Takasugi's Sacrifice? Gintoki shook his head in disbelief. "I should've guessed it would be you."

Hijikata was feeling a little left out. _Another of Gintoki's old friends? This is getting a bit much…_ He cleared his throat rather pointedly.

"Aw, the brat's feeling lonely," teased Gintoki. "Zura, this mayora here is my Fighter, though I still don't get what's the whole business about Fighters and Sacrifices." Gintoki had found out about Hijikata's obsession with mayonnaise at breakfast, when the ponytailed teen had smothered his pancakes and cereal with copious amounts of the stuff.

"You'll find out soon enough," replied Katsura. "Nice to meet you, Hijikata. I hear you two have one of the special names."

"_Unfettered_," repeated Takasugi, with an expression that was just a shade away from being a sneer. Looking at Hijikata, the teacher enunciated clearly, "I declare a spell battle."

"I accept," answered Hijikata, grabbing hold of his silver-haired partner as the classroom around them disappeared, to be replaced with a strange black nothingness in which there was only the four of them. "Battle system, expand."

"The hell?" shouted Gintoki over the sudden strong gusts that accompanied the change, clearly unnerved.

"It's the battle system," explained Hijikata hurriedly. "Fighters and Sacrifices battle in this system. Damage to physical objects inside the system does not translate to objects outside the system. Some call it a _kekkai_."

"Does that mean I can get injured in here but come out hale and hearty?" inquired Gintoki.

"Idiot! If it were like that, there wouldn't be much point in a fight, would there?" retorted Hijikata.

"I don't see the point in it anyway," grumbled Gintoki.

"Shut up and let me pay attention!" Hijikata turned away from his Sacrifice to focus on Takasugi.

The older Fighter was already starting his attack. "Bind with chains of pain, the darkest pain that we, _Painless_, will never know."

"Block!" shouted Hijikata as heavy black chains appeared from nowhere, shooting towards them at high speed. The giant chains bounced off a newly-formed force-field. "Snow, sleet, hail, and ice-storm to freeze the numb, unfeeling skin of those who feel no pain!"

"Melt with the sun's heat, heat that blazes and burns, turning bodies to an unimaginable heat-hell," countered Takasugi. His eyes glittered as he added, "Burn – in the fires of hell!"

"Fire is nothing but tongues of orange light. The sun is shielded by clouds," Hijikata replied. "Lightning forms in the thunderheads and strikes the enemy."

"The hell is going on, Hijikata?" Gintoki shouted incredulously from behind. Snowflakes turned to rain (falling like needles) as a huge orange sun flared up, its rays slicing the darkness in which they were suspended. Then a huge and heavy bank of clouds rolled across, covering the sun as sparks wove among the high dark thunderclouds, flashing downwards like a spear –

"That lightning is naught but summer lightning, fizzling out before it reaches its target," retorted Takasugi. "Bullets from a thousand machine guns fall like rain. Bones grind, break, rip the skin. Pain, like that of a spear through the heart, like that of an axe cleaving the head, like that of a crushed dream."

_The shithead, he's firing spells so – darnned – fast!_ "The bullets explode before traveling two meters; the pain is nothing, the nerves transmit no messages of pain to the brain," rattled Hijikata. The flying bullets went off like fireworks overhead. _Did I get everything? Fcuk, I don't think I did –_

"Hijikata…" The dark-haired teen turned, only to be confronted with the sight of Gintoki staring morbidly at his own body as the bright spots of red flowered on his white kimono. His arm, flopping like that of a puppet, suddenly bent at an extreme angle. A flash of white amid the overflow of red had to be bone; Hijikata felt sick to his stomach seeing the bared bone and tortured flesh that had no right to be seen while their owner was alive.

"It's not painful," remarked Gintoki, clearly shocked. "What the shit is going on, Hijikata? Is this what you call a battle? And why am I bleeding so fcuking much?"

"Shut up, idiot," muttered Hijikata, more out of reflex than anything else. He gripped Gintoki by the shoulders as his silver-haired Sacrifice wavered. "Takasugi-sensei, I…"

The older Fighter nodded haughtily. "It is our win." The endless dark nothingness of the battle system faded away, until they were once again standing in the classroom.

Gintoki's eyes flew wide as the now very real pain roared through his system. "The hell… if I could sue you, I would, you useless Fighter," he mumbled, eyes now closing as unconsciousness rapidly took over. "If I get scars, it will all be your fault."

Hijikata fought the urge to avert his eyes from his mutilated partner. "The scars might be an improvement on you," he told the sleeping Gintoki. He didn't mean it, of course, but saying it made him feel somehow better.

_x __ x_

It was hours before Gintoki woke up. Hijikata spent a great deal of that time berating himself for being slow as well as for not telling Gintoki about the stigma of the names, and the remainder of it mentally yelling at Gintoki for provoking Takasugi.

He felt a bit better when more Sacrifices were brought into the hospital wing with grisly injuries. At least he wasn't the only one messing up in paired fighting. Several distraught-looking Fighters trailed after their partners. There was only one exception – sometime after lunch, Sougo came in, supporting a bloodied and exhausted but still very feisty Kagura. "Let me go, bastard!" she protested shrilly. "I can still fight!"

"You know, I actually believe you. But Kondou-san said to bring you in, so I had to," Sougo told her.

"Screw this Kon-whatever! I don't wanna stay here! I wanna fight!" whined Kagura, pounding weakly on the brunette's back.

A nurse hurried over, looking very disapproving at the already-dried bloodstains on Kagura's clothes. "You should've brought her in immediately," she admonished Sougo. "Even with accelerated healing, she's not far from collapsing. Take better care of your partner, why don't you?"

"I'm sorry," replied the Fighter, clearly not at all sorry.

"Oh, the mayora is here!" cried Kagura as she was borne away by the nurse's companions. "What did you do to Gin-chan, you stupid mayora bastard!"

"Such a foul mouth," remarked Sougo. "I wonder what the boss has been teaching her. Hello, Hijikata."

Hijikata glared at Sougo, simply because Sougo was clearly in a good mood and he wasn't. "Well?"

"I think at least half the people in here were done by me," commented the brunette. "What happened to you? Takasugi-sensei had more balls than you?"

"Shut up!" yelled Hijikata. The nurses and dejected-looking Fighters nearby whirled around to stare accusingly at the ponytailed teen. Lowering his voice with an effort, he said, "I was careless, that's all. And Takasugi-sensei might just give you a run for your money when it comes to being sadistic."

"Saa, I doubt it." Sougo whistled tunelessly, turning to walk away, waving his tail most insultingly. "Oh, well. Try harder next time."

Hijikata stamped on the urge to attack the brunette. The nurses might just kick him out, and for some reason he felt that he ought to be there when his Sacrifice woke up.

"Was that Okita?" _Speak of the devil…_ Gintoki had apparently woken up during his conversation with Sougo. The silver-haired perm-head was now struggling to sit up, with limited success.

"Yeah." Hijikata went over to help. After a few minutes of combined effort, Gintoki was sitting up, propped by several squashed pillows. "He was being an asshole, as usual. All that comes out of him is crap."

Gintoki chuckled, then clutched at his bandaged ribs. "Whoa. It's helluva a lot of pain, but they don't seem broken anymore."

"Fighters and Sacrifices have accelerated healing abilities," Hijikata informed him. "If we didn't, we couldn't fight."

"Are you people some kinda… espers, or some other superhuman lab rats?" asked his Sacrifice. "'Cause I have to say, I'm pretty freaked out here. The hell was all that?"

The dark-haired teen sighed and resisted the urge to massage his temples. It seemed that he got migraines just by being around Gintoki. "Fighters and their Sacrifices fight in pairs in a battle system. Fighters are able to manipulate… stuff in the battle system using words. Obviously, the objective of a fight is to beat the other pair. The Sacrifice takes the damage from attacks."

"That's… warped," declared Gintoki. "What bastard thought up this weird system?"

"I don't know!" exploded Hijikata. "And frankly, I don't care. This Academy…" he paused, hesitating, then took the plunge anyway. "Kondou-sensei saved me. I was… in an orphanage – it was hell. Then Kondou-sensei showed up and said I had a place at his school – this school, Shichisei Academy. If he hadn't come… This place is my home. I don't care what the point of Fighters and Sacrifices is, but it's what keeps me here, gives me a place… where I belong."

There was a pause after Hijikata's sudden outpouring. Gintoki stared at the Fighter, his face unreadable. Hijikata, embarrassed after telling this comparative stranger what was basically his life story, feigned great interest in his shoes.

Then a warm weight landed without warning on Hijikata's head. It took a moment for the dark-haired teen to register that Gintoki was _ruffling his hair_. "Poor brat," drawled his Sacrifice. "And I thought you could never be cute."

Hijikata's cat ears flattened under the unfamiliar touch. "Stop it, bastard," he growled, but his voice lacked any real anger.

The silver-haired teen grinned and tugged gently at the twitching ear. "These, of course, help."

"Bah. Shut up." Hijikata pulled away and stood up abruptly. "I'm off."

"Save me some dinner," Gintoki called after the Fighter's retreating back. "And none of that mayo-dog food, either!"

"It's not dog food, and you can jolly well get your own food!" retorted Hijikata, stalking out of the hospital wing.

_x x_

Once paired up, Fighters and their new Sacrifices had a great deal more freedom than the unpaired Fighters. The higher-ups probably realized that two relative strangers could only be together for so long before tearing each other's hair out. It was just as well – Hijikata could barely stand having to look at his silver-haired Sacrifice every single day, let alone cooperate with him, and as they had to fight almost every day, cooperation was a must. To get out of there and away from Gintoki was such a relief that Hijikata, even though he was accustomed to being closed inside the Academy, found himself wrangling permission to go out from Kondou-sensei every couple of days.

Gintoki, meanwhile, bought his weekly _Jump_ issues without fail, following which he happily immersed himself in the mangas for hours on end. Hijikata enjoyed the days when _Jump_ was released more than any others, because it meant that for at least three hours following its purchase, he wouldn't bump into Gintoki anywhere. The older teen had an uncanny way of turning up in all the places Hijikata patronized, whether it was the pachinko parlor, the cold drinks stand, or even the female beauty salon (that last was Hijikata's desperate attempt to get away from his partner). So, on the days when Gintoki drove him down on his bike to the town to get his latest _Jump_, Hijikata enjoyed a few blissful hours of freedom.

It was on one of the days when he was trying to avoid Gintoki that he discovered the joys of smoking. He'd entered a host club (another last-ditch effort) and, for some reason, was received with great hospitality by the several good-looking men there. When asked, they'd laughed and said they were tired of all the lecherous ladies who were their regular customers, and wanted to pretend to be looking after another customer while actually taking a break. Fascinated by the obvious pleasure the other youths seemed to derive from the humble stick of tobacco, and feeling extremely irritated, stifled and rebellious after a long afternoon of playing hide-and-seek with Gintoki, he had taken the plunge to try it out. Now he was smoking like a chimney, and had no intention of stopping, no matter the supposedly scary warnings on the cigarette packs.

He half-expected Gintoki to pass comment on his new habit. Kondou-sensei had already expressed shock in his usual dramatic fashion. But Gintoki, as usual, refuted Hijikata's expectations. The silver-haired teen had given Hijikata a quizzical look, then said, "Since you've started down that road, why don't we go on? You, my boy, are going out with me tonight."

"To where?" asked the ponytailed Fighter suspiciously.

"Where else? Smoking, drinking, and, of course, women, in that order. Well, I skipped the smoking, but that doesn't matter. It's the shining pathway to manhood, Hijikata-kun," declared Gintoki. "You don't plan to keep those cute ears of yours forever, do you?"

"I don't want to stick with you any longer than is absolutely necessary, you bastard," growled Hijikata. "I'm not _you_."

"Oh, I should've known you didn't have the balls to do it," Gintoki said mockingly. "Such a wimp you are, only going the first step, then getting too scared to go any further. And you still call yourself a man! Huh. You're an embarrassment to the race of men! I'm ashamed of you!"

_That_ got him where it hurt. "Fine! I'll go! But do anything stupid and I'll swear I don't know you, see if I don't." Hijikata knew he had just been manipulated, but there was little he could do about it. He definitely couldn't refuse, now that Gintoki was questioning his manhood.

And that was how they ended up in one of several available sleazy bars that night. It was their fourth already, since Gintoki insisted on moving on every few drinks. Hijikata had a feeling that it was the silver-haired teen's way of testing his limits; being new to alcohol, the Fighter wasn't taking it very well.

"I think we… should go on to our last stop… after this one," slurred Gintoki, as they wobbled and flopped their shaky way to one more bar.

Hijikata, trying – and failing impressively – to focus on keeping his balance, didn't reply. He had long since lost track of time, though from the slow tendrils of fatigue creeping into his consciousness, it was way past midnight. Speech was too much of an effort when his mind was busy coping with the fact that there were currently two Gintokis (oh god, it was hell trying to live with one; the world must be coming to an end if there were _two_) to try the complicated act of articulation. Even if he had spoken, it would probably have come out as a string of gibberish.

Time had ceased to exist, while space was warped and no longer trustworthy. As Hijikata tilted yet another questionable glass and felt the strange (though it was quickly becoming familiar) and exciting burn as the liquid swirled down his gullet, he watched the clock on the bar's wall twist – rather like toothpaste – with abstract interest. Later, after another countless series of drinks, when Gintoki clambered to his feet and Hijikata dutifully struggled to follow, the floor tilted treacherously and dumped him smack on his face. Pain was a while in coming. Hijikata heard a weird, hiccupping sound, and, wondering what it was, realized that he was laughing – at himself or at the very odd, fluid world he was in now, he didn't know, and he didn't care.

Somehow he struggled back to his feet. The world wavered under him, but didn't dump him a second time. Hijikata slip-slid-shuffled his way out of the door of the bar, vaguely remembering that Gintoki had just stumbled out that way.

Sure enough, not far down the street was the white shape of Gintoki, leaning heavily on a wall as he pushed himself onwards. Hijikata followed, commanding the ground beneath him to behave itself. Meekly, the ground did as it was told. He caught up with his Sacrifice without much mishap.

Gintoki looked at him blearily. "Oh… aren't you a pretty. I know what you're after… and you know what I'm after…

Hijikata was too busy staying on his feet to really understand what Gintoki was saying. "Where…?" he managed.

Gintoki's face split in a drunken grin. "Yes, yes, Gin-chan will bring you… treat you nice…" His slur became even worse, until Hijikata couldn't even discern the words. Not that his brain was capable of deciphering them even if he could hear them clearly.

After that was a blur when nothing made sense, and the sky was green but the floor was black with stars, while the road bucked and twisted like a horse with colic. Then they were in a room, a room with a bed and nothing else because he couldn't even see straight anymore, and the bed was a circle – no, an oval – no, a triangle –

And then it really didn't matter anymore, because a bed was a bed and beds were nice and soft and just what he wanted at that moment, because beds were loyal and didn't betray you the way floors did, because he was so far gone that the fact that Gintoki was kissing him meant nothing –

Sensations. His already beleaguered brain was being further overloaded via then senses as skin brushed skin. Somewhere along the way, he wasn't sure where, maybe the first time he fell, maybe the second bar, maybe a few seconds ago, maybe a year ago, his ponytail had come down, and the long hairs tickled his chest. Fingers twined through the dark strands. Hot red eyes, hot skin, hot body; Gintoki's puzzlement, then acceptance, then appreciation as the imprisoning clothes were shed. Alcohol, a distant and still relatively sane part of Hijikata's mind reflected, was an amazing instrument in improving human relations.

Whiteness. Someone screamed; he didn't know who, himself or Gintoki. His mind was blank and screaming in the burning white, before he finally fell gratefully into the gentle darkness of dreamless sleep.

_x x_

Hijikata woke up feeling like he was a tree under attack by a few dozen woodpeckers. His headache was so bad he felt nauseous; every part of his body, including his eyelids, felt like they were made of lead, while his muscles had turned to water. With an immense effort of will, he pushed himself into a sitting position and opened his eyes.

His stomach, unhappy with the treatment it had received the night before, protested at the movement by squirming like a nest of snakes, while his head banged like a drum. Preoccupied, he took several seconds to comprehend his situation.

He was in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. Looking down at himself, he realized that he was naked, which was odd because he usually slept in a yukata. Turning his head, and valiantly ignoring the painful pounding in it, he saw someone else under the sheets – Gintoki.

– _Hot blurred crimson eyes, warm hands on his burning skin, heretofore unknown pain and pleasure… sweat and seed staining his hands, his legs, that silver hair –_

Hijikata clutched at his head and groaned. A scream would have better expressed his feelings at that point, but he really didn't feel up to it and didn't dare try. Morbidly, he noted that his cat-ears and tail had vanished. _Great, just fcuking damn great._

Wanting to get away from Gintoki, he made to slide off the bed and stand up. His already displeased stomach, however, expressed further displeasure, and he felt bile surge up his throat as he tried to move. Shooting pain up the base of his spine, while confirming the worst of his fears, also ensured that he wasn't going to be able to go anywhere anytime soon without help.

A sound behind him made Hijikata stiffen. Gintoki had apparently awoken. Mumbling unintelligibly, the silver-haired Sacrifice turned over, throwing a hand over his eyes. "It's too bright… close the damn curtains, Hijikata…"

"Close them yourself!" snapped Hijikata, hunting for his clothes. He wasn't sure if Gintoki had used his name because he had become accustomed to Hijikata's being his roommate, or because he actually recalled the… activities of the previous night with any clarity, and if there was any chance of it being the former, Hijikata wanted to deny that anything had happened.

"Nnngh… where is this?" Gintoki had opened one bleary eye. "Damn, my head hurts like shit… why the hell are you naked?"

Out of patience, the dark-haired Fighter didn't deign to answer the silver-haired teen's insensitive question. Instead, he steeled himself to get out of the bed, pain or not, and slowly recovered his clothes if not his modesty.

Gintoki was silent for a few seconds, then voiced a slow, heavy, horrified "Oh." Another pause. "Ah… you should really cut your hair, Hijikata-kun."

Gintoki only added the –kun suffix when he was pissed, uncomfortable or teasing. His recollection of the previous night, and his acknowledgement of it, did nothing to improve Hijikata's mood. "You know what, we're actually in agreement about something," he growled. "Nothing happened, okay? Nothing! We went to a normal brothel! You –" here he shot a venomous glance at Gintoki, "you never touched me, and nothing – absolutely _nothing_ – happened here!"

"Whoa, whoa, cool it," entreated Gintoki. "I'm sorry, okay? I really thought you were a girl!"

"No you didn't! If you did, you'd've stopped before –" Hijikata couldn't bring himself to continue. Red flags of humiliation burned on his cheeks. "Whatever. I'm clearly not a girl, since I don't have what they have and have what they don't, and I don't excuse you just because both of us were piss-drunk, 'cause I'd think it's pretty obvious whether you're screwing a girl or not." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, like I said, _nothing happened_. Say anything to anyone and I'll kill you, Sacrifice or not."

Gintoki didn't reply. Turning away, stamping on the urge to hobble, Hijikata made for the door, allowing the silence that lay between them to grow ever deeper…

_x x_

Sougo was the first to notice, and inquire, about Hijikata's newly-cut hair and newly-lost cat features. "You finally got yourself laid, Hijikata," he commented.

"Shut up," warned Hijikata, still sore.

"What's with the new hair, though? Your girl was jealous that your hair was nicer than hers?" suggested the brunette. "Though, if it were China, she'd've ripped out all the hair rather than cut it so nice." By China, he meant Kagura, his very violent Sacrifice, who was also a self-proclaimed passionate supporter of women's lib. "You got off easy."

"As if I'd go for that freaky kid!" The thought of a whore-Kagura made Hijikata break out in goose-pimples. "Nobody in their right minds would!"

"Yeah, she'd probably bite off their family jewels," said Sougo contemplatively. "I'm off to make sure she doesn't destroy my voodoo collection. Ta-ta."

"You have a god's-blasted _voodoo_ _collection_?" yelped Hijikata. "I hope she _does_ destroy it!"

"What was that about?" Gintoki, apparently having sprung up through the floorboards, was looking quizzically at him. "If you mean Okita's voodoo collection, he doesn't need to worry. Kagura-chan only nibbled it a little."

"_Nibbled_?" repeated Hijikata, feeling nauseated.

"She thought they were edible," explained Gintoki. "She just wanted to know what they tasted like."

"She must've had a very interesting education," muttered Hijikata before he could stop himself. Realizing his mistake, he immediately regretted it. _Dammit, he's _so_ going to make some horrible sex pun –_

"Naw, kid's are like that," replied Gintoki, much to the dark-haired Fighter's surprise. "You know, find out more about stuff by trying to eat them. That's why the infant mortality rate is so high. Their parents leave poisonous stuff around the house, those idiots." He scratched his head. "I'm off to Katsura's. Try not to miss me too much."

"Who's gonna miss you, bastard!" retorted Hijikata at once. Again he wanted to bang his head against the wall. Something was definitely wrong with him if he could banter so casually with the bastard that had screwed him silly not twenty-four hours ago.

"Something the matter?" inquired another Fighter who happened to be passing by and found Hijikata's murderous glaring at the unfortunate wall rather unsettling.

"Oh, Yamazaki. No, nothing," answered Hijikata, fishing out a cigarette and lighting it, letting the nicotine seep into his system. As he had recently discovered, it was surprisingly calming. "Just… having a Sacrifice isn't all it's hyped to be."

Yamazaki, who was a year younger than Hijikata, still retained his cat-traits and had no Sacrifice as yet, laughed nervously. He was quite a nervous person. "Oh… I guess I'm happy without one…"

"Yeah, you should be," muttered Hijikata, puffing a plume of smoke into poor Yamazaki's face. "You don't know how jealous I am of you."

_x x_

Time passed. Hijikata and Gintoki continued to bicker, ignore and row with each other in cycles. One of the worst fights occurred when they found Sougo and Kagura making out, a few months after Hijikata's eighteenth birthday. That one was so bad that they had to move back into the unpaired Fighters' dorms for a week while their room and those of their neighbors were repaired. Gintoki had expressed great horror that _his_ Kagura would become the object of Sougo's BDSM tendencies, while Hijikata had been adamant that Sougo would suffer terribly at the Kagura's violent hands. Of course, the pair under discussion had completely ignored their older guardians.

They were sent out on so-called 'missions', where they went to a designated place, met an unfamiliar Fighter-Sacrifice pair, fought them, won and came back. After that disastrous first fight against Takasugi, the two of them had not lost a single battle (though, just for the record, they hadn't been pitted against Sougo and Kagura, the other pair that remained unbeaten, as yet), which was probably why they were chosen to go on the 'missions'. Both _Unfettered_ and _Reckless_ were becoming famous in the Academy for their exploits. It went a long way to healing the wounds Hijikata had sustained on his pride after his horrible loss to Takasugi, teacher or not.

Gintoki complained regularly about Hijikata's now close to endless smoking, while Hijikata in turn complained regularly about Gintoki's nose- and ear- picking and how the silver-haired Sacrifice left the results of the aforementioned pickings all over the room, often in unexpected and inconvenient spots. Sougo and Kagura acted like insane teenagers in love, which was their right since they were insane, they were teenagers and they probably were in love. Shinpachi was subjected almost weekly to force-feeding by Gintoki and Hijikata with sweet-bean rice and mayonnaise rice respectively, since the pair could never come to terms with each other's food preferences. Otae and Kyuubei lost their cat ears simultaneously, to Kondou-sensei's utter despair. Life went on. Hijikata could almost forget that muzzy, alcohol-reeking night when he and Gintoki had slept together in that nondescript love hotel.

Almost, but not quite. Hijikata still avoided alcohol of any sort like the plague, especially when Gintoki was around. He claimed he was allergic in response to the skeptical queries, and Gintoki never said anything to contradict him. He still refused to change in the presence of his Sacrifice, and Gintoki was considerate enough to only do so when Hijikata's back was turned. Hijikata never let his hair grow out again and went to the barber regularly to keep it strictly trimmed. Apart from these small things, though, both acted like that night had never happened.

After a year had gone by (they only realized when the meeting ceremony was held again), Hijikata was shocked to find that he and Gintoki, while certainly not lovers, had managed to become friends.

_Friends?_ Hijikata felt like hiding himself underground for a few years or doing something equally drastic. Next thing, he'd be falling head-over-heels in love with the bastard, like some trashy romance novel heroine.

He shook his head fiercely. Nope, that wasn't going to happen. For one, he was still definitely a guy (here he surreptitiously checked, just to make sure he hadn't somehow sprouted boobs in the night). For two, he was pretty sure he was still straight. No strange kinky dreams involving Gintoki (though he had to admit that the several-month-old one-night-stand was proving very difficult to forget). For three, Gintoki himself was still, very, very straight. Straight as a flagpole. In fact…

"Can you _stop_ that?" he yelled.

"Hmm?" Gintoki didn't turn. "Stop what?"

"Stop watching porn videos using _my_ computer! Fcuking use your own, you bastard!"

"But yours has a bigger screen."

"What kind of shit reason is that?"

"It's a very good reason. You see everything… so… much… better…"

"God, you make me sick."

"You know, if you wanna watch too, you could just say so."

"I don't!" Hijikata had a sudden brainwave. "Guys only watch porn videos because they can't get any girls. You're one pathetic bastard."

"Oi, that hurt," protested Gintoki, though he still didn't avert his eyes from the M-no-X-rated scene on the screen before him. A tiny trickle of blood dripped from his nose.

"The hell do you get them from, anyway?" demanded Hijikata. "I'm going to report them to Kondou-sensei for selling illicit content to minors."

"How're you gonna explain how _you_ know about it?" inquired Gintoki. "You're younger than I am, and besides, I'm almost twenty already. And if you must know, it was Sougo."

Hijikata strangled the air. "That… bastard! I'm reporting him!"

"It won't do much good," Gintoki pointed out. "Kondou-sensei buys from him too."

"Hell…" Hijikata slumped onto his bed.

"They do say that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," said Gintoki philosophically. "I hear he's got a new batch."

Hijikata massaged his temples tiredly. Yup, definitely straight. No way was this pervert going to go for guys, not when he watched bouncing boobs and heavy bedtime artillery every couple of days.

_x __x_

**A/N:**** Eh… well, I know Hijikata's supposed to have very good alcohol tolerance, but even he had to start somewhere, right? Plus, I have a hard time imagining Hijikata letting Gintoki screw him at this stage. But they'll get there. –works on it–**

**I hope the flow wasn't too bad. There're times I tend to ramble around, and probably I made a big deal out of nothing (particularly the Takasugi bit).**** And unless I'm much mistaken, Hijikata is totally OOC. . Gah. Don't kill me, Kid-chan. I'm trying. T.T Hopefully everyone understood and enjoyed this at least a little…? Thanks for all the story alert plus-ing, by the way ^^ though reviews would be even better now that you've all alert-plus-ed this ficcy. Please? –puppy eyes–**

**Anyways, I realized that my linebreaks didn't show up the last time, making the story flow really weird, so I changed them and hopefully they show up now.**

**All self-respecting GinHiji fans should ****review****! =D**


	3. How to End a Battle in a Draw

**How to End a Battle in a Draw**

_-In which Hijikata makes productive use of his anger, Gintoki is thoroughly beaten up, __Takasugi acts more insane than usual and Kamui has plenty of fun-_

Shortly after Hijikata's eighteenth birthday, which was celebrated with mounds of mayonnaise and piles of cigarettes for him and booze for everyone else (Hijikata and Gintoki spent a large amount of time trying to keep Sougo and Kagura from the alcohol, to no avail), the pair was called up by Takasugi for another mission. They were to leave immediately.

"At least give us a day's notice," grumbled Gintoki.

"This is a mission, not a holiday," admonished Takasugi. "How much notice do you _need_? It's not like you have much to do here."

"Some things need… taking care of," mumbled the silver-haired Sacrifice. Hijikata had a feeling Gintoki was alluding to the new stack of porn DVDs Sougo had just procured.

"You'll be going to Tokyo's Inokashira Park, Kichijouji Minami-cho, Musashino City," continued the one-eyed teacher as though he hadn't heard anything. "The pair you're up against is _Heartless_, one of the best in Harusame." Harusame was the other organization that churned out Fighter-Sacrifice pairs, also for an unknown purpose. All their 'missions' so far had been against pairs from Harusame.

"That's what they always say," scoffed Gintoki. "They're never that tough."

"Oh? Well, according to the report –" Takasugi had an uncanny ability of hacking into Harusame's computers, and he now gestured at the screen in front of him. " – the Fighter of this pair is the older brother of _Reckless_' Sacrifice."

Hijikata's cigarette twitched convulsively. "_Kagura_'s older brother?" The thought of a Fighter who was anything as violent as Kagura was very disturbing.

"Yes. I expect this to be a difficult fight," said Takasugi. "Only one of the last five pairs they have fought against have survived. In the others, the Sacrifice was fatally wounded and died during the battle."

Hijikata chewed the end of his cigarette. If the Sacrifice died, the Fighter usually committed suicide and died with them. Also, Sacrifices dying in battle, while not rare, was not exactly common either. To kill so many… This was clearly not going to be an easy fight.

"Can we bring Kagura along?" inquired Gintoki. "She'll want to see him, I'm sure."

Takasugi shot a filthy look at the silver-haired Sacrifice from his single eye. "No. I repeat, this is a _mission_, Gintoki. Not a field trip for kids. Weren't you listening? This pair is dangerous!" Then, suddenly, he seemed to calm down. "Not that it matters. Go and have fun."

Gintoki blinked, puzzled by the one-eyed teacher's contradictory declaration. "So… can I bring Kagura and Shinpachi?"

"No. It's a little holiday especially for you two. Nobody else allowed. You're going to go there and have a nice bonding session over the fight. Maybe you could get this Kamui to sign a card for Kagura," suggested Takasugi, lighting his pipe and taking a deep draught. "He might be nice enough to do that. The kid will be happy."

"Wait, Takasugi, you're not making sense –" began Gintoki, but Hijikata elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "Ow! What was that for, you bastard?"

"We'll be ready as soon as possible," Hijikata told the now pipe-puffing teacher. "We'll excuse ourselves now."

Once out of the teacher's room (and having dragged the protesting Gintoki along with him), Hijikata turned on Gintoki. "That guy's insane, can't you tell? He looked just like Sougo when he started talking about random holidays and bonding – evil. He's got to be planning our deaths. I know from Sougo. The last time he had that look on, I found that my entire mayonnaise stock had turned purple and there were worms crawling all over the place. You don't go around trusting people like that," he berated, steering his Sacrifice back to their room. "They're dangerous. We can't do anything about it; it's a mission after all, and we can't _not_ go, but we sure as hell are gonna survive, no matter what these sadistic bastards cook up between them. I _told_ you Kagura was a bad influence on Sougo…"

"He wasn't that bad before," muttered Gintoki, allowing himself to be steered. "And your mayonnaise couldn't have tasted much worse. And Kagura isn't sadistic, just a bit… careless."

_x x_

They left that afternoon for Tokyo, on Gintoki's little scooter. Hijikata had objected violently to having to squeeze with his Sacrifice on the tiny pillion seat, but after Gintoki told him that he could walk if he was going to make so much noise, he had grudgingly acquiesced.

Not long after sunset, they reached the city, and treated themselves to one of the better hotels in the area (Shichisei funded missions quite generously). After that, both of them slept like logs – though both complained the next morning that the other's snoring had kept him awake for hours. It was just one of _those_ things.

The battle having been arranged for eight p.m. that night, the pair took the morning off to do the normal touristy things people do in Tokyo. The afternoon was devoted to rest, because they had learned by now that battling without a nap first was a bad idea (for some reason, battles were always held at night). All this was, of course, interspersed with the usual squabbling.

They ate less than usual for dinner, though Hijikata made up for the deficiency by increasing his helping of mayonnaise and Gintoki did the same with his sweetmeats (several bystanders turned green upon seeing the oozing off-white mound and the teetering pile of assorted sweet beans). Again, this was something they had learned from experience – the one good thing that could be said about throwing up in battle was that, it being in the battle system, the puke vanished along with the system when the battle was over.

The walk to the arranged meeting place was comparatively quiet. Hijikata was wondering what would be the best way to face down Kagura's older brother (the image in his mind was somehow Kagura herself, except perhaps a little taller), while Gintoki… well, Hijikata had no idea what the silver-haired Sacrifice was thinking, since Gintoki's eyes were as dead-fish as ever.

"Are we too early?" Gintoki glanced about the small shrine, cloaked in shadows at this late hour.

"Nope, bang on time," replied an unfamiliar voice cheerily. Hijikata whipped around, eyes narrowing, trying to find the speaker. He did _not_ like to be taken by surprise.

There – two figures emerging from the darkness behind the shrine. One was wearing a thick greatcoat and scarf even though it was mid-summer. His blonde hair was a rough mane; one sleeve of the coat flopped unnaturally, as though there was no arm inside. The other had a long braid of hair that looked pink in the dim moonlight but was probably as fiery as Kagura's. He wore a smile that made Hijikata's skin crawl. If Hijikata had been a dog, his hackles would have gone straight up. This guy looked like a new-and-very-much-more-dangerous version of Sougo. Sougo 2.0. The name of trouble. Oddly enough, both of them still retained their cat ears and tails.

"We are _Heartless_," announced the speaker, the redhead. "Isn't it fitting, that we meet here in the shrine of Benzaiten, vengeful goddess of love? You, of course, will be _Unfettered_. What a strange name. Meaningless."

"Freedom," interjected the blonde man, presumably the Sacrifice.

The smiling Fighter ignored the clarification. "Introductions, then. I'm sure you'd like to know who you're going to lose to."

Hijikata bristled. "We're not gonna lose!"

"I am Kamui," continued the redhead as though Hijikata had not said anything. "Abuto here is my Sacrifice."

"I am Hijikata –" began the dark-haired Fighter, only to be interrupted.

"Don't bother. You're just going to be one of many," said Kamui dismissively. "Shall we get started?"

"Here's a little cramped," Gintoki remarked, scratching his head, the picture of nonchalance. "And it's a nice little shrine. We wouldn't want to damage it. Let's go outside."

About to remind Gintoki that the battle system actually did have a purpose, Hijikata stopped. Gintoki's unruffled attitude was unexpectedly appropriate. They didn't want ot appear like eager-to-please youngsters raring for the fight. This was a fight between adults of high caliber.

Hijikata produced a cigarette and lit it. "Yeah," he agreed, casually exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Outside's a better idea. More air to breathe."

Kamui's eyes, which had been closed while he smiled, now opened. In the strange moonlight, they appeared smoky blue-grey. He stared at them for a few seconds, cat ears twitching, then smiled again. "Hmm… interesting. Come on, Abuto." Turning on his heel, he led the way out of the red-painted shrine.

They found a suitable open space in one of the nearby gardens. "I declare a spell battle," announced Hijikata clearly. A strong wind whipped up, tearing the petals off the flowers around them.

"I accept," answered Kamui. "Battle system, expand." With a hollow whooshing roar, the moon-pale surroundings vanished, to be replaced by the familiar inky dark emptiness. Kamui's eyes were open; his tongue flicked out, tracing his lips slowly in anticipation.

"Glass shards fall as rain, tearing skin, snapping sinew," declared Hijikata. "Light blazes from the shards, pierces the eyes!"

"Block," defended Kamui. A force field expanded around him and his Sacrifice, on which the glittering pieces of glass shattered and vanished. "Bullets – diameter eight millimeters, penetration 100 percent. Twenty billion of them shooting from guns on all sides."

"Defend!" shouted the dark-haired Fighter as a milliard of tiny objects materialized, speeding towards them. They glinted dangerously in the strange half-light of the battle system. "Defend, defend, block with walls of lead, steel, titanium!"

The small bullets ripped through the force fields he had thrown up, passed through the lead wall as though it was no resistance at all, slowed down as they pierced the steel wall and dented the titanium. Fortunately, the last titanium wall held. Hijikata let out a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Defense?" remarked Kamui. "Huh. They told us you were one of the best. I don't see how you earned that title. _We_ are the best – us, _Heartless_. Heat from the sun's furnace turns your walls to dust. Give me laser cannons from five centuries in the future."

Hijikata's metal walls melted to nothing. As the enemy pair came back into view, they saw a huge machine standing between the other Fighter and Sacrifice. A pool of what looked like plasma boiled inside its mouth. Kamui was smiling serenely. "Fire."

"Block! With sand, with earth, with five-foot-thick walls!" Hijikata's desperate defense rang out even as the roiling plasma pounced onto them. "We feel no pain, we receive no burns; the plasma bypasses us and leaves us unscathed!"

Even though Hijikata felt as though he had simply passed through a sheet of warm air, he knew his Sacrifice could not have got off as lightly. Once the light-spots had cleared from his eyes, Hijikata sought out Gintoki to see the damage.

It wasn't quite as bad as he had expected. After all, Gintoki was still alive, albeit not by much. The silver-haired Sacrifice's flesh was streaked with black and red, presumably burns. His hair and clothes were scorched; he panted harshly, obviously in pain. When he opened his eyes, they were filled with barely-suppressed pain. "What are you doing, staring at me when you're supposed to be kicking the enemy's ass?" he growled. "Get on with it! I'm fine!"

Hijikata didn't need telling twice. "Restrictions! All enemy attacks have their power halved! Nails pierce all areas of enemy's body; pressure of the sea-depths crushes them!"

Heavy silver chains covered in sharp nails appeared, snaking around Abuto's legs. The blonde man looked at them with mild interest. "Rebound, reflect, return to the originator with twenty-time strength," commanded Kamui, The chains retreated. "Weak-willed creature, you will never win. Have you never been taught? Fighters and Sacrifices fight not with words, but with their wills! You are fighting only with words!" Kamui's tail lashed angrily. "This is a worthless fight. Abuto, let's leave. I don't care what Boss says. Fighting weak creatures like this is not worth my time."

"Block!" cried Hijikata, to no avail. The force field released by his defense vanished as the silver chains crashed into it. They clamped tightly onto Gintoki's already injured limbs, eliciting a stream of expletives from the silver-haired Sacrifice. At the same time, a crushing, grinding noise rumbled through the system. Gintoki collapsed under a sudden immense force.

"Bind with the pain of a broken heart, pain that we, _Heartless_, will never know, will always scorn," added Kamui, watching distastefully as the silver nail-encrusted chains glowed unearthly blue and started vibrating violently. Gintoki screamed, a terrible wrenching animalistic cry as his body twisted under the torture it was being put through. Blood drooled slowly from the places where the skin and chains met.

"Stop!" yelled the dark-haired Fighter, afraid for Gintoki's life, angry at Kamui, angry at himself. "_Stop_!" He took a deep, shuddering breath. He didn't know it this would work, and whether it was even possible, but there was nothing left. He couldn't let Gintoki die. He didn't really know _why_, not at this point with all these scrambled emotions, but he did know that he had to make this smiling bastard pay. "Rage. Unheeding, unrestrained, unfettered, just as we are _Unfettered_. The powers of rage, the freedom of rage, come to me!"

_Rage_ was a spell that could only be used by bonded pairs, usually the last resort when the Sacrifice was badly wounded. _Rage_ amalgamated and converted all the fears, anxiety, hopelessness, despair of the Fighter to pure, unalloyed, unreasonable anger. In the raging state, the Fighter's attacking power went up several-fold, but was unable to defend – or rather, did not defend, because the spell took over them completely and they only thought of attacking. It was like over-protectiveness in a more productive form.

A curious sense of weightlessness came over Hijikata. His mind seemed to fizz, then boil, as his emotions mixed and solidified in the spell. Even in the alternate reality of the battle system, up and down no longer made sense; he seemed to see everything at once and nothing at all. A faraway, still-unaffected part of his mind noted that this feeling was similar to that of his first and fateful drinking experience. Then it too was engulfed in the rush of boiling rage.

"A storm of fire to burn, a lake of blood to drown." The words spilled from his mouth without conscious control, as though these spells had been waiting for his anger and its attendant power to come into being. "Give me winds with the destructive power of a hurricane to tear the defenses apart."

"Block," defended Kamui as fire lanced down from blooming storm clouds. His Sacrifice paddled in a rising pool of redness, seemingly unconcerned. A rising wind clawed at the force field erected by the redhead, ripping visible holes through which white-burning ashes fell. Kamui's skin showed red where the bright, dangerous fireflies had passed. The enemy Fighter frowned slightly as Abuto's clothes began to smolder.

Hijikata laughed, maniacally. He could feel his face muscles stretched tight, pulled taut in a grin that was not his, a grin that came from the thrill of the chase in an intoxicated high. "Red-hot chains, blinding light; drown in darkness and confusion!"

Glowing chains spun out of nowhere, winding tightly around the blonde Sacrifice's limbs and making him grimace as his already smoking greatcoat began to burn outright. Abuto's eyes unfocused and then focused repeatedly; he looked extremely disoriented under the confusion Hijikata had spelled. Kamui, however, smiled. "You've taken my advice to heart, I see. Now you are someone worth fighting. Poison claws, rapier teeth, shred the enemy!"

"Reflect!" commanded the dark-haired Fighter. The newly-materialized weapons bounced off his reflective barrier, making for the blonde Sacrifice. An irrational mix of elation and anger flooded Hijikata, making his head spin. Nothing made sense, but he didn't care. As long as he won – as long as he and Gintoki walked out of this battle system alive and victorious, as long as the enemy pair was hurt as badly as Gintoki was, he would do what was necessary without a second thought.

Hijikata's power was amplified several-fold by _Rage_. Where before his defenses had been futile and his attacks swatted away like so many flies, now he was equal to – or even better than – Kamui. The redheaded Fighter's blue eyes were now wide open, and he too wore a taut smile of anger and exhilaration. Spells flowed in unending, relentless strings from their lips; both Sacrifices were bruised and bloodied, burned and frozen in vicious cycles as their bloodlust-driven Fighters concentrated on attacking.

What seemed like hours, but was probably only a fraction of one, passed as the two Fighters struggled to overcome each other. As they paused for a breather, exhausted, Kamui panted, "You're not bad. Nobody's ever been able to bloody me in paired fighting before."

"Bastard," growled Hijikata. His jaw muscles felt tired from the long-drawn battle. By this time, both of them were scored with tiny scratches and mottled with small bruises, evidence that their Sacrifices were near breaking point. The dark-haired Fighter smiled lopsidedly. "We can stop if you give up. Prevent your looks from getting worse."

"Oh? How about if _you_ give up? You look to be in more danger of permanent scarring," countered the redhead. "I'm sure Abuto will last longer than your Sacrifice. Your perm-head has only one toe still out of the grave."

Hijikata's shoulders shuddered in a laugh that only just made it out of his mouth. _Rage_ really tired the spellcaster. "Naw, he's not gonna die. You know, like bugs? You think they're dead, but they never do die."

"I… heard… that," came a barely-audible whisper from behind him.

"There, he's alive." Hijikata straightened, heartened by the confirmation. A Sacrifice still able to speak was good news. "Us bugs, we're hard to kill. Maybe if you were a bug too, you'd die less easily." He wasn't too sure whether he was making sense, but he was past caring. Gathering the last of his strength, he commanded, "Suffocate."

"Reflect," came the equally drained spell from Kamui. Glazed blue eyes met their twins as the two Fighters stared at each other, the knowledge of their own end reflected in their trembling muscles, sore throats, blood-cobwebbed limbs.

_It's a good thing it's so late at night,_ thought Hijikata tiredly, sensing his consciousness fade even as the battle system disintegrated. He felt a soft thump as Kamui too succumbed to the seduction of gravity.

"Don't die on me," he whispered, to himself or to Gintoki, he didn't know.

Before he fell into the dark whirlpool of unconsciousness, he thought he heard an equally worn out voice say, "You too."

_x x_

"Hijikata. Hijikata-kun."

Someone was calling him.

"Hijikata, you bastard, wake up."

He contemplated ignoring that voice, irritating even in this wonderful dream of flight. But it wasn't worth flying through the most beautiful clouds if that stupid voice continued to buzz in his ears. Folding his wings, he dropped.

"What?" he mumbled. His body felt as though it was made of lead. He was lying on something that prickled uncomfortably; where the hell had he gone to sleep? "Go 'way, dammit…"

"I would if I could," retorted Gintoki. "But unfortunately, you are currently are the only one able to walk. Which we'll need to do, if we want to get out of here before dawn."

Groaning, Hijikata sat up. Looking around, he recognized the red-lacquered shrine of Benzaiten and the gardens where they had fought against _Heartless_. The other pair was nowhere to be seen. Beside him was Gintoki, looking very much the worse for the wear. No part of him had escaped unscathed. The deeper cuts still bled sluggishly.

"This sucks," pronounced the dark-haired Fighter.

"You think?" his silver-haired Sacrifice asked with feeling. "So, can we go to a hospital or something? I feel like crap, and you don't look so hot yourself."

"No hospitals," said Hijikata automatically. Fighters and Sacrifices were not allowed to go to normal hospitals. He wasn't too sure why, but it had never been a problem before. "I brought the first-aid kit, I think."

"There's still the problem of getting back to the hotel," Gintoki pointed out.

Hijikata maneuvered himself to his feet, ignoring the protests from his tired muscles that expected a good few more hours' worth of rest. It was still dark, but not by much; the sun was going to rise in less than an hour. A distance away, he could see people doing a group tai-chi exercise. Definitely not the best-case scenario, but then again when did the best-case scenario ever happen?

"I guess I'll have to carry you back," he said, glancing at his still-prone Sacrifice. At the sight of the bloody, battered form, guilt surged in him, but he masked it with a look of distaste. "God, you're a sight."

"Thanks much," grumbled Gintoki. "You owe me."

"For what? Not dying on me?" Hijikata bent to hoist his silver-haired partner up, careful not to cause him any more hurt than was absolutely necessary. _Gosh, he's _heavy_. All those parfaits biting him in the ass now, I guess._

Carrying Gintoki was like carrying a furnace on his back. "Yeah, something like that," murmured the older male. His breath ghosted across Hijikata's ear and neck, and he felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the morning chill race down his back.

_Lack of sleep_, he told himself firmly. Adjusting the deadweight to a more comfortable position, he began the trek back to the hotel.

_x x_

Takasugi seemed surprised and even a bit put out when Hijikata called him to inform him about their survival. In the end, though, he grudgingly agreed to let them stay in Tokyo a week longer for Gintoki to recover and recuperate away from the chaos of the Academy.

"I think the bastard wanted us to die," grumbled Hijikata, getting the first-aid kit.

Gintoki chuckled tiredly. "Yeah, it's just like him."

Sitting down beside his Sacrifice, Hijikata looked him over and sighed. "I'll help you with the clothes."

"Never thought I'd hear that from you," teased Gintoki, painfully shrugging out of his bloodstained kimono.

Normally that would have been enough to start an argument between them, but Hijikata didn't have the heart to retort this time. Instead, he focused on peeling Gintoki's clothes off without disturbing his wounds or burns. "If this wasn't my fault, I wouldn't be doing this," he warned his Sacrifice. "So don't…" He paused, unsure of what he was warning Gintoki against. "Well. You know."

"I'm not doing anything," declared Gintoki. "I'm innocent, whatever you're accusing me of. How could you suspect a wounded man?"

"Shut up, or you can dress your wounds yourself," threatened Hijikata. Gintoki's shirt was now off. "Why the hell do you wear so many layers, anyway?"

"All the more fun to unwrap. You're deprived, you know, not watching those… educational videos from Sougo," the silver-haired Sacrifice informed him.

"Quit it, or I'm really going to leave you to do this yourself," repeated the dark-haired Fighter, uncorking a bottle of ointment for cleaning wounds. "Or if you want, I could maybe hire a maid from the hotel to do it. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

There was a short pause. "No, don't bother," said Gintoki. "It's fine."

"Hmm…" Hijikata looked skeptically at the other male. "Did your balls get burned or something?"

"They might just have; I'm hurting so many places I don't know which part of me is still intact." Gintoki reached for the organ in question and yelped. "Fuck!"

"What? Not there anymore?" Hijikata wanted to know.

"Nope, they're still there, but _damn_ they hurt like crap. It's entirely your fault," accused Gintoki.

Hijikata gritted his teeth. He knew he would have to say this eventually, but he hated it. "I'm… sorry."

"Eh? I didn't hear you," warbled Gintoki.

"I'm _sorry_, okay?" Although his voice was fierce, he made sure his hands were gentle as he applied the ointment to the burns and wounds on Gintoki's back.

"Okay, okay, I just wanted to hear it again," Gintoki relented. "You don't exactly say it very often."

"Shut up," retorted Hijikata, for what seemed like the millionth time. Done with his Sacrifice's back, he relocated to sit in front of him. As his hands passed over Gintoki's chest, he felt the muscles twitch. "Oh come on, surely it's not as bad as when you were getting the wounds," he admonished.

"It's not that," muttered Gintoki. Louder, he added, "I'm just getting jumpy, having to see your ugly mug at close quarters."

"Bastard. I could kill you real easy right now, you know," Hijikata informed him. "Don't tempt me."

"Believe me, nothing is further from my mind," replied Gintoki.

Once he had done all he could for Gintoki's upper body, Hijikata hesitated. He knew it was rather silly, but he really didn't want to make the move to finish undressing his Sacrifice. Uncomfortable, he reached for a cigarette before remembering that the smoke wasn't going to be good for either of their injuries.

Gintoki seemed to have read him. "It's okay. I'll do the pants myself."

"Bah. I just don't want to get a face-full of burnt balls," defended Hijikata, simultaneously relieved and guilty. "It's bad enough having to look at the rest of you."

'Ever heard of the thing called underwear?" the silver-haired Sacrifice inquired. "It's not like I'm gonna take _that_ off in front of you. Not with my manly treasures in the state they are now."

"… Okay. Hurry up," muttered Hijikata, turning his back on Gintoki.

Slither. "Ouch. I think there's more rips in this than in my skin. Not gonna be enough even for rags."

"The hell are you thinking of making rags?" Hijikata wanted a smoke, badly. "Get the blasted pants off!"

"So demanding. You're supposed to be the devoted, loving wife," grumbled Gintoki. "Not the bossy mother."

He really, really needed that smoke. Taking out a cigarette, he clamped it between his teeth without lighting it. It was a comfort thing. "Since when was I _either_? Are you done yet, bastard?"

"Yes, yes, I'm done." The mangled pants fell from the bed to the floor. Hijikata took that as a signal that he could turn back. "You look pathetic, chewing on a ciggie without lighting it."

"You look worse," the Fighter felt the need to point out as he sat down again. Applying the ointment, he kept his eyes on his hands. For some reason, he didn't want to meet Gintoki's eyes, especially when he worked on his Sacrifice's thighs. _He's got a lot of muscle for a sugar-addicted couch potato…_

Surprisingly, Gintoki also seemed averse to conversation. He didn't complain of the pain at all, though Hijikata knew the sting from the medicine was not exactly easily ignored (he'd had his share of injuries before getting paired). The Fighter had expected him to grumble quite a bit, particularly since it was because of his incompetence that his Sacrifice had ended up in this shape, but accepted the silence without question.

After what seemed like ages, all the wounds were treated. Checking those he had first tended, Hijikata noted with satisfaction that they were well on the mend, the Sacrifice's naturally supernatural healing ability augmented by the medicinal formula specially for Fighters and Sacrifices developed by Shichisei. "We're done," he informed Gintoki.

Receiving no response, he chanced a glance at Gintoki's face. His Sacrifice's eyes were shut. "God, you could sleep through all that?" he asked the slumbering Gintoki incredulously.

He packed up the first-aid kit and stowed it safely, then returned and pulled the rumpled covers of the bed over his Sacrifice. Once that was done, he tossed the thoroughly-chewed and soggy cigarette into the dustbin and lit a new one. Taking a deep pull, he gratefully let the nicotine seep into his frazzled system.

It was going to be a long week.

_x x_

**A/N:**** Uh… okay, the fight was plain bad. I just needed Gintoki injured. So that they can like, bond while healing or something.**

**Gah.**** Everyone's so OOC, particularly Takasugi. This chappie was just plain bad, wasn't it, Kid-chan? I'll make it up to you in the next chappie where the smut awaits. Still working on it though. Fricking Japanese prelims next week to study for. T.T**

**Review**** and the smex will be written faster! ^^**


	4. How to Kiss and Make Up, GinXHiji Style

**How to Kiss and Make Up, GinXHiji Style**

_-In which Gintoki and Hijikata 'go at it like rabbits', some things are explained, more things are left to the imagination, and __most of the side characters get some long-awaited screen time-_

Hijikata was getting cranky. His supply of mayonnaise was running low. _Of course it would, I only prepared for two days, but the bastard must get himself all beat up and we have to stay a _week_ instead,_ he grumbled internally, conveniently forgetting that not only was he the reason Gintoki was wounded, but also that he was the one that had asked for the extended leave. Hijikata was an uncharitable person when suffering withdrawal from mayonnaise rationing.

"Why the hell can you get _Jump_ and I can't get mayonnaise?" he demanded of his Sacrifice, who was blissfully rereading the manga magazine in the comfort of the hotel bed.

"Hmm… maybe they have more mayo-freaks in Tokyo than at home," suggested Gintoki absently. "So they're always sold out."

"Fuck." Hijikata kicked the foot of the bed. "I hate you, you know that?"

"A bad name is simply a far with consonants." Gintoki turned a page. "I'm sure you can come up with better endearments than that."

"That's it. You can do your own treatment today. You're almost healed already, dammit," grumbled the Fighter.

"_Someone_ seems to have forgotten that they owe me," commented Gintoki to the room at large.

"Asshole, I said sorry already!" shouted Hijikata, still sore about his failure to defend his Sacrifice. "What else do you want, huh? You want to tie me up with some of Sougo's more inventive toys? Or just beat me up till I'm as bruised as you were in the fight?"

"Nothing so drastic." His Sacrifice had put down his _Jump_. He was serious. "Just… can you do the medicine for me one more time?"

Hijikata narrowed his eyes at Gintoki, suspicious. "That's it?" Taking the silver-haired male's silence for acquiescence, he huffed and went to get the first-aid kit, then plonked himself down on the bed. "Hurry up," he ordered.

Gintoki pushed away the covers and began to undo the belt that held his kimono on. "I still don't get why you must wear so much," muttered Hijikata, just because he felt like complaining. "It makes my job that much harder."

Again, his Sacrifice didn't answer, which made Hijikata even more pissed. It was easier to rant at Gintoki when Gintoki was ranting back at him. "Oi, say something, you bastard!"

"If I talk, you get pissed; if I don't talk, you still get pissed. You're as hard to please as any woman, you know?" said Gintoki by way of reply. His shirt was now off.

"Stop with the comparisons to women. I am _not_ a girl," retorted Hijikata, slapping ointment with unnecessary force onto Gintoki's almost-healed scars. "I'll thank you to remember it."

"Ouch! Yes, ma'am, or sir, or okama-san, or whatever you want to be called," answered his Sacrifice.

Hijikata knew he was being baited, but he blew his top anyway. "Fuck off, you goddamn son of a bitch! You pathetic burnt-balls asshole with dead-fish eyes who couldn't screw anyone even if he tried and can only get off on bad porn videos –"

"I thought so too," remarked Gintoki. "Maybe I should do something about it, eh?"

Belatedly, Hijikata realized that Gintoki was much too close for comfort. "Hey, back off, you stupid bastard! You want me to fall off?" he blustered, trying in vain to avoid the glowing crimson eyes that were boring into his own.

"Shut the fuck up," whispered Gintoki, and then he was kissing Hijikata, his arms were pulling the Fighter close, and Hijikata's trail of insults withered and died. _The fuck… _Hijikata's mind churned as the cogs inside struggled to process this sudden information overload. _Damn he kisses good_, a very distant, still unaffected part of his mind noted.

The glass bottle of medicinal ointment smashed on the floor, and the crash brought Hijikata back to his senses. He shoved Gintoki away. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, asshole?" he shouted. His voice rasped, much to his embarrassment.

"What does it look like?" The smile on Gintoki's face wasn't particularly sweet, but for some reason it made the hairs at the back of Hijikata's neck stand up and his ears burn hotly.

"Bastard, I told you I'm _not_ a fucking girl! Are you so sexually deprived that you're willing to screw anything with a hole in it?" demanded the Fighter. "Like I said last time, we could call one of the hotel maids in; I'm pretty sure Takasugi wired us enough money –"

"You can't take a hint, can you?" Gintoki's hand gripped Hijikata's collar and yanked. The next thing he knew, he was flat on the bed, and Gintoki was kneeling over him, pulling his yukata apart. "Whoever said I wanted a girl?"

The warmth of Gintoki's palms on his chest was making Hijikata's brain stall and flicker like an old movie. "The shit… get _away_ from me… this is goddamn rape, you asshole!" He struggled half-heartedly, the heat of embarrassment and, to his dismay, lust washing over him in a paralyzing wave.

"Hmm? This here seems to like me right where I am," commented the Sacrifice, shamelessly groping Hijikata's nether regions. "'Sides, Zura did say Fighters and Sacrifices usually end up lovers, so it's not like anyone's gonna say anything about either of us being gay."

Hijikata gasped, his body responding to the touch despite himself. "Fuck!"

"We'll get to that," Gintoki told him. "Patience, mayo." His hands were moving back up to Hijikata's torso, tracing tantalizing lines on the muscles, which twitched under this unexpected treatment.

"Shut it about the mayo." Deciding that if his dignity was already this far gone, the rest could just go to hell, Hijikata grabbed a handful of silver hair and crashed their mouths together in a rough kiss. Gintoki responded at once, tongue flicking across Hijikata's lips even as his teeth nipped at their edges. Hijikata gasped at the sudden pain as the thin skin broke, and Gintoki took the opportunity to slip his tongue into his mouth. The Fighter felt slightly better about the gasp when Gintoki groaned deep in his throat, one hand burying itself in his dark hair and the other gripping his waist almost painfully tightly.

They separated only when air became an undeniable necessity. Hijikata was panting deeply, as was Gintoki; he could feel something hard digging into his thigh, and could see the tell-tale tent in his own yukata. His face was flushed from a combination of awkwardness (hell, this was still another guy, Fighter and Sacrifice or no), lust and the simple heat of skin on skin. His yukata was more than half-off, and in the course of the kiss, Gintoki's pants had become unbuttoned too. The silver-haired Sacrifice's eyes were blood-crimson; Hijikata felt as though the room temperature had risen several degrees as those eyes trailed appreciatively over his exposed body. "Staring is rude," he informed his Sacrifice with as much irritation as he could muster.

Gintoki smiled slowly, and Hijikata felt a shiver race down his spine. "How could I not stare? You're as sexy as my favorite parfait, all flushed like a strawberry and pale as vanilla."

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?" demanded Hijikata.

"Oh, yes." His Sacrifice leant in suddenly for another kiss; when he pulled away, he saw Gintoki lick bright red droplets off his lips. "You taste even better than ice cream."

Hijikata didn't know he could turn even redder until then. "Shut up and do something _useful_, would you?" he growled, pulling the silver-haired male down so that their hard lengths brushed against each other. Neither could repress a gasp, and Hijikata arched involuntarily into Gintoki's heat.

"Holy shit…" Gintoki's eyes rolled up; his whole body trembled at the sudden harsh contact. "Okay, okay, I'm working on it!"

It wasn't long before they had both shed their remaining clothes. Hijikata was long past the point of no return; he really couldn't care less now about the fact that this was the nose-picking, sugar-high, porn-watching bastard Gintoki he was about to have sex with. What he did care about was getting that sex – the sooner the better. His hormones were raging rampant through his blood and brain, and the sight of Gintoki's glowing red eyes, muscled body and unabashed arousal, only served to make them rage even more fiercely.

"Eager, aren't you?" Gintoki groaned pleasurably as Hijikata pressed close, sinking his teeth into his Sacrifice's neck. "To think you were the one being all bitchy and scared as a virgin just now."

As it happened, Hijikata wasn't the pathetic sort who didn't get anything like any. He did get some. Underage though he was, Hijikata was more than capable of faking is way past drunken bar bouncers. It had been a sort of denial, a confirmation that he was straight in every way and that the night with Gintoki had been a complete mistake due to both of them being so drunk neither could see straight. He had wanted to affirm that he still liked girls and they still liked him (he'd heard someone somewhere – the voice was unnervingly like Sougo's – saying that brothel girls could smell a gay a mile away and was testing that theory out; since they seemed perfectly happy, he had been greatly reassured). So, Hijikata really wasn't all that deprived of sex.

But there was somehow something different when Gintoki touched him, different from when the prostitutes pressed close to him. The voluptuous curves of the women had never been able to set every single nerve in his body on fire, the way Gintoki's hard muscles did. Hijikata was fairly sure he had never been quite so demanding or animalistic when it came to sex, but it seemed that Gintoki never followed rules of any sort (wasn't he still supposed to be recovering from the battle?). He considered mentioning this fact, in the form of a complaint, of course, but forgot about it – forgot just about everything but his own name – when Gintoki's tongue traced his ear, Gintoki's hand slid down to massage his thighs, Gintoki's nails scraped on the rough flesh of his arousal _oh god-fucking-damn he couldn't take much more –_

He came, gasping as fireworks went off behind his eyelids and the excruciatingly wonderful pressure was relieved. "…Fuck," he panted, keeping his eyes closed as he recovered.

"Mm… I _knew_ you'd taste good," Gintoki commented. A very strange but also very arousing mental image popped up in the Fighter's mind at the remark, the distinct slurping sound and the implications of the combination, but he was still too knocked up to pay it the attention it deserved. "But we're not done yet, Hijikata-kun…"

The sudden, rather ominous blunt pressure at his rear end brought Hijikata back to his senses with a jolt. "Wait –" He choked back a moan of pleasure as Gintoki ravished his ears and neck with disturbing oral dexterity; fire seemed to pour from the areas of contact straight to his lower body, where his recently spent arousal was beginning to perk up again. "Lube, you idiot, do you have lube?"

"There's plenty here," murmured the silver-haired Sacrifice, the vibrations of his voice right beside Hijikata's ear sending involuntary thrills down his spine.

Hijikata craned to see what Gintoki was referring to, only to be presented with a pool of his own seed, lavishly slathered on his shameless Sacrifice's hands. His already lust-heated face becoming hotter by several degrees, the Fighter latched onto Gintoki's ear and bit down. Hard.

Gintoki yelped. "Ow! What was that for? It's perfectly good lube! 'Sides, I bet it all feels the same once it's inside –" Hijikata rotated his jaw, mauling the unfortunate ear further. "_Ouch_! Okay, okay, I'm sorry!"

"Shut up, bastard, and _fuck me_," ordered Hijikata, out of patience.

"You don't have to ask." The silver-haired Sacrifice crashed his lips onto Hijikata's in a bruising, heated kiss, plundering his mouth so fiercely that the Fighter was distracted from anything taking place below waist level for several seconds. Only when they broke apart did Hijikata register the discomfort in his ass. Seeing the look in the dark-haired male's eyes, Gintoki grinned. "I'm fine if you don't want preparation, you know."

The Fighter's eyes widened. No way was he going to let Gintoki shove in raw. But hell, did it feel weird! "Please tell me your cock feels better than your fingers."

"I wouldn't know," replied his Sacrifice, crimson eyes glittering – in mischief or lust, it was impossible to tell. "You could tell me, though." The fingers in his rear end disappeared, to be replaced by a much broader, warmer pressure on his entrance. Instinctively, Hijikata tensed, but Gintoki started kissing him again, teeth and tongue massaging, teasing, distracting, while a hand fisted Hijikata's renewed arousal, bringing it to full hardness.

As renewed waves of heat-desire washed through his body, the Fighter felt his muscles loosen and a warm, hard length slide into him and _oh fuck this is goddamned uncomfortable why the shit do gays do this?_ About to express this opinion, Hijikata nearly bit his tongue as Gintoki shifted in him and _something_ happened that – _good god maybe this buttsex thing actually has something going for it_ – made fireworks go off behind his closed eyelids. "Fuck!"

"Doing that already," gasped Gintoki, panting deeply. "God, Hijikata, you're so amazingly _hot_ like this…" A moan escaped his lips, deep and feral and so needy-sex that would probably have reduced them both to puddles of embarrassment if they were bothering about their pride that this point. Experimentally, Hijikata rocked his hips, grinding down further onto Gintoki, and was rewarded by a second, even needier groan. "Hijikata…!"

Slowly at first, but quickly getting faster, they rocked together, finding a rhythm that made Hijikata gasp with pleasure and Gintoki's grip on his hips tighten convulsively each time they slammed together. Hijikata's hands fisted the mangled sheets hard enough to rip them; the heat of skin on skin and of Gintoki around him, in him, driving deeper into him with every thrust, molding their two bodies into one made him abandon any last semblance of thought. He could feel the deep throbbing, the sensation of excruciatingly pleasurable pressure at the base of his member, and somehow managed to gasp, "I can't – hold on – any more –"

Gintoki's crimson eyes flashed. "Scream my name, Tosshi. Come for me."

Hijikata didn't even consider objecting. As his vision went white and the pressure was finally relieved, he could feel his mouth form the syllables of his Sacrifice's name, his vocal cords vibrating, straining, the scream ripping from his throat as every muscle in his body snapped tight. At the same time, he felt warm fluid gush inside his body and Gintoki too tensed and came.

They collapsed onto the mauled bed, spent. Hijikata could feel sticky semen in him, on him, around him on the sheets, could smell the sharp odor of sex permeating the air, but couldn't bring himself to care very much. Gintoki's warm weight rolled off to settle beside him. He was still breathing hard; he could tell that his Sacrifice was too. "God…"

Hijikata considered his options. He could complain at Gintoki, go to sleep and pretend that nothing had happened, or talk to the bastard like a civilized being. Debating between the first two choices (he didn't feel particularly up to civilized conversation), he heard his Sacrifice speak first. "That was amazing… we ought to do that again sometime…"

"Bastard," muttered Hijikata, settling on the new option of insulting Gintoki.

"Aw, now don't be like that, sweetie. We were getting along fine just now," wheedled his Sacrifice.

"Please, call me anything but that." The Fighter's teeth all but creaked at the horrible nickname.

Gintoki grinned. "Oh, so I can call you honey, sugar, cupcake, muffi–" He was interrupted by a large pillow slamming onto his face.

"I have a _name_, jerk!" Hijikata, having sat up to free the pillow for use as a weapon, now glared down at his momentarily subdued Sacrifice.

"And a very nice name it is too, Tosshi," replied Gintoki blithely, slightly muffled by the pillow.

"Just shut up and let me sleep, will you? God!" The Fighter collapsed back onto the bed as the sated post-coital lethargy washed over him, urging him to sleep. _The shit did they say about pairs bonding after going through difficult fights… I think it's more like his mind has been completely rearranged,_ he thought grumpily. _The stupid bastard's gotten all mushy. Lucky me._

"If you say so." A hand slipped over his waist, even as Hijikata slid into the welcoming darkness of sleep.

_x x_

Hijikata woke up to water pounding down on him. Fairly certain he had not gone to sleep under a waterfall, he opened his eyes slowly. Someone was supporting his body, and hands were gently caressing his shoulders and running through his hair. "… Gintoki?"

The hands paused, then started moving again. "Ah, fuck. I was trying to let you sleep. Seems that I failed." There was a faint tinge of guilt along with the self-deprecation in his voice. "Relax, Tosshi. I won't jump you right now."

The dark-haired Fighter braced himself against the glass wall of the shower stall, twisting his head to look at his Sacrifice. "How noble of you." There was a pause as Hijikata fumbled for the words to express his still very confused state of mind. "… Gintoki?"

"Yes, Tosshi?" The older man's voice rumbled in his chest, sending slight vibrations through Hijikata's body. It was oddly comforting.

"Why did you… well." Hijikata felt a blush rise in his cheeks and was grateful that he had had the presence of mind to turn his back on his Sacrifice. "You know. Fuck me."

Water splashed down on both of them, seemingly louder in Hijikata's ears as Gintoki did not answer immediately. His hands still moved on Hijikata's skin, but there was a new mechanical quality to the touch that had previously been so gentle. Then, after what seemed like an interminable silence, the silver-haired Sacrifice said, "I wanted to."

"What?" He had heard perfectly clearly, even though the words had been barely above a whisper and nearly drowned out by the gurgle of the water. Gintoki's lips were just behind his ear, and his head had just dropped to rest on Hijikata's shoulder. The dark-haired Fighter was not expecting this sudden show of weakness, and his question was a reflection of his surprise, both at the action and at the words themselves.

"I said I wanted to fuck you. For a long time. I just never got around to it until now." Suddenly Hijikata was pushed flat against the wall of the shower stall, pinned there by Gintoki's warm weight. Teeth nipped at his ear, eliciting a sharp, surprised gasp from the Fighter. "And now that we've started, I really don't see any reason to stop…"

"Wait!" Hijikata wriggled, trying – and failing – to dislodge his errant Sacrifice. "You didn't – nnh – explain anything! What about those porn videos you're always watching? And I definitely told you to forget about that goddamn one-night-stand!"

Gintoki detached himself from Hijikata's neck, which he had been alternately biting and then kissing the bites better, long enough to consider and answer his Fighter's question. He did not, however, allow Hijikata to turn around. "Those were kinda related, I guess… you told me to forget, I couldn't forget, I tried to forget because I knew if I tried to jump you I'd get bruised balls or worse, and so I used the porn to get you off my mind. I wasn't quite as sloshed as you were; I did have an idea of what was going on."

Here he took the opportunity to run his tongue up the younger Fighter's neck and warmly lathe the other, as yet untouched ear. Hijikata hissed, arching in spite of himself. Everything Gintoki did felt so damned _good_…

"There was just something about you… well, the drink definitely helped, I was pretty well buzzed by then," said Gintoki. "And your long hair was certainly a plus. You, on the other hand, were so disoriented and confused it was seriously cute. The helpless damsel-in-distress thing. Ow!"

Hijikata, not about to let the damsel-in-distress slur pass without protest, had stamped hard on his Sacrifice's toes, resulting in the rewarding yelp from Gintoki. "I'm a guy, you bastard! And stop rambling. Get to the point."

"Okay, okay!" Gintoki gingerly put his weight back onto his damaged foot. "Well, to put it bluntly, you were pretty damn hot when you were buzzed – at least to the equally-buzzed me at that time. So I took you to the hotel. Then you got so upset the next day, I figured it would be best to act as though it was all an accident. But I couldn't stop thinking about what it might be like to do it again, when we were both fully aware instead of drunk."

The water pounded down on them both, a counterpoint rhythm to the heartbeat thudding loudly in Hijikata's ears. An odd sense of foreboding was rising in him, but he ignored it in favor of hearing Gintoki out.

"…That's basically it," admitted the silver-haired Sacrifice. "Call me a pervert if you want, but having you so near and yet being unable to touch you was really bad. I probably would've jumped you before this if I hadn't found out about Sougo's selling porn."

While he'd been talking, Gintoki had stopped his ministrations, only keeping Hijikata pressed up against the glass and his hands caught above his head. The dark-haired Fighter leaned his head against the cool glass, trying to get his mind to stop spinning with the sudden revelations. "The shit… what part of this is supposed to be _Unfettered_? We're the most chained people I've ever heard of," he muttered under his breath, not sure whether his voice shook from anger or disappointment. "Which bastard thought up this fucking system...? I never wanted… you never would've wanted…"

"It's not like that." Without warning, Hijikata was spun around so that he was facing his Sacrifice. Gintoki's eyes blazed red; they bored fiercely into Hijikata's dull blue ones. Lips crushed down on his in a bruising kiss, tongues battling for dominance as hips ground together. Hijikata moaned into the kiss, writhing under the sensory onslaught. Just as suddenly as it began, the kiss ended; Gintoki had pulled away, but his face remained inches from the Fighter's. "Would you rather this never happened? _I_ don't. I like myself right where I am, here fucking you in a Tokyo hotel, and I don't give a damn what _might_ or might _not_ have happened if this screwed-up Fighter-Sacrifice system didn't have the clause on Fighters and Sacrifices becoming lovers. You're right, this probably wouldn't have happened if there wasn't that stupid rule, but I'm happy it happened. Are you?"

"I'm – fuck, I don't know." Hijikata closed his eyes, unable to meet that burning crimson gaze. "I guess I just need to get used to… this. To us."

Warmth engulfed first one, then the other of his nipples, sucking luxuriously. Hijikata gasped, his eyes snapping open and his breathing speeding up. "Well, nobody said you can't have fun while you get used to it, or that I can't help you get used to it," said Gintoki, grinning up at him.

"Son of a bitch," retorted the Fighter, but there was considerably less bite in the insult than usual. "If you want to fuck me, get on with it. We're wasting water here."

Gintoki's eyes glowed deep red. "You asked for it." Before Hijikata could even brace himself, his silver-haired Sacrifice was taking him, hard. The younger Fighter barely managed to choke back a scream, releasing it as a stifled moan instead. It definitely helped that he still seemed to be loose from their earlier exertions, and the pain wasn't quite as bad as it could have been otherwise.

As if to make up for his roughness, Gintoki was handling Hijikata's upper body with considerably more care, trailing his lips and tongue over the dark-haired Fighter's clavicle and neck while giving him time to adjust to his sudden entrance. Hijikata couldn't restrain the urge to struggle, temporarily forgetting the pain, as Gintoki's tongue dipped into the hollow between his collarbones, sending sparks through his body. "God, Gintoki…"

"You alright?" His Sacrifice pulled away, checking him with something like concern. "Lube wouldn't hold up very well in all this water, so…"

Hijikata sighed and grabbed a fistful of Gintoki's naturally-permed hair, yanking his head close to reconnect their lips. They parted after a short but heated clash. "Like I said, if you want to fuck me, get on with it. But if you want to talk, get your cock out of my ass."

Gintoki smirked. "I love it when you talk dirty." Before Hijikata could come up with a suitable retort, his Sacrifice had done _something_ that ended with Hijikata pressed face-first against the glass wall of the shower stall. Hijikata hissed, the cold glass feeling strange – but not in a bad way – on his hot, sensitive flesh.

"Look in the mirror." Gintoki seemed to be developing a habit of talking just behind Hijikata's ear, which invariably did funny things to his higher brain functions. The younger Fighter wasn't altogether sure whether this was a good thing or not. Despite his misgivings (the feeling of Gintoki rocking tantalizingly inside him probably had something to do with his obedience), he obeyed the order and looked.

"Holy shit. Turn me back around right now, you bastard!" demanded Hijikata, blushing furiously as he shut his eyes firmly. Looking at himself all splayed out like that was just _wrong_. His skin all flushed with heat from the water and the sex, his hair plastered to his head as water cascaded down, his body oddly contorted as he balanced precariously on his toes and on Gintoki's hips, and worst of all, his desire unmistakably hard and red pressed shamelessly against the glass – it was too much, too soon. He had barely adjusted himself to the idea of taking it up the ass, and now he was being forced to do the equivalent of watching hardcore gay porn.

"No," insisted Gintoki. "I want you to see yourself as I'm seeing you, and let me say again, you're goddamn _sexy._ Though, of course, the cat-features were a nice added bonus."

Against his will, Hijikata opened his eyes again, cautiously. "Hell, Gintoki, I don't want to see myself," he muttered, keeping his eyes only half open to avoid having to look at himself in that treacherous mirror.

"I want you to see how gorgeous, how fucking _hot_ you are when you're getting screwed," murmured his contrary Sacrifice, still in that damnable position just behind his ear. "I want you to know you are beautiful and amazing."

Hijikata felt himself blushing again, but for a rather different reason. "You sappy pervert."

Gintoki's hands, one of which had been holding Hijikata's against the glass above his head and the other which had been steadying the Fighter's hips on his own, now slid around Hijikata's waist, fingering the muscles there with sinuous relish. At the same time, he moved his hips in such a way as to press against that sweet spot deep inside Hijikata, eliciting a deep, insistent moan from the dark-haired Fighter. "Fuck, Gintoki, stop playing around!" he growled, in a tone that could only be described as desperate as his hands scrabbled for purchase in the smooth glass.

"Sorry," replied his Sacrifice, though he was clearly not at all apologetic. Hijikata could see his grin clearly even in the steam-blurred glass. "I can't resist savoring you like I savor a parfait. Good things are best enjoyed slowly." He chuckled at Hijikata's half-outraged, half-pleading expression and moved his hands lower to grip his Fighter's arousal. "But since you're so obviously in need, I'll be nice."

And then there was nothing but Gintoki's heat against his back, Gintoki's hardness driving ever deeper into him and hitting that wonderful place that set off multicolored sparks behind his eyelids, Gintoki's hand supporting his head so deceptively gently, Gintoki's other hand rubbing and scraping and pleasuring his member until Hijikata could do nothing but scream –

There was something lewd, something indecent, something unimaginably _erotic_ about watching himself being thoroughly debauched in the midst of steam, water and glass, all in that mirror from which he could not avert his gaze now, that mirror that was baring his unabashed desire before his horrified, traitorous, lustful eyes.

They came almost simultaneously, Hijikata's vision going white and his back arching sharply even as he felt Gintoki's muscles tense and teeth sink painfully into the juncture of neck and shoulder, warm fluid filling his insides while his own seed painted the glass.

Slowly, the thunder of Hijikata's heartbeat in his own ears receded, to be replaced by the softer splash of water from the shower, which was rapidly erasing the evidence of their activities in the past few minutes. After what seemed like an age, in which the pair of them stood leaning heavily against the glass and each other, Gintoki pulled out of him. Both of them were still panting deeply. "I told you… we ought to do it again," said Gintoki.

"Shut… up," breathed Hijikata. "Pervert."

Gintoki dragged his reluctant partner back under the full blast of the shower. "That's what you love about me, isn't it?"

"I said… shut up!" Hijikata tried to scold, but his words lost a significant amount of bite due to the lingering breathlessness.

"Good thing I know how to interpret your expressions of love," muttered Gintoki, pulling Hijikata close. "Now, unless you want to get fucked again, I suggest we both clean up and get out of this shower as soon as possible."

Hijikata pushed his clingy Sacrifice away in favor of grabbing the showerhead, only to find – to his dismay – that his legs refused to support him. He crumpled to the floor in an undignified heap. "Crap…"

Gintoki, grinning unashamedly, helped his partner up. "Looks like you need me to clean up, Tosshi."

"I hate you," grumbled the dark-haired Fighter, grudgingly allowing himself to be supported by Gintoki.

"I love you too," replied his Sacrifice, directing the showerhead over the sticky remains of their passion.

Hijikata fought the urge to pout like a child denied a toy. Being unable to stand after was definitely something to keep in mind when – if – they had sex again. "This is all your fault."

"Tell me you didn't enjoy it." Gintoki's voice was very clearly amused. He ran a thumb across Hijikata's swollen lips tantalizingly, causing the younger Fighter to swallow sharply.

"I hate you," repeated Hijikata, trying and failing to prevent a blush from rising in his cheeks. "I hate you, you naturally-permed pervert."

_You are beautiful and amazing_… the words still echoed in his mind. It was the nicest thing anyone, including Kondou-sensei, had ever said to him.

_x x_

They returned to Shichisei later that week, after several very anxious calls from a highly agitated Kondou-sensei demanding to know why they weren't back at the Academy by the scheduled time. Apparently, Takasugi was being scarily cryptic about what had befallen the pair. Hijikata was of the opinion that Takasugi had not been any such thing and Kondou had simply been too excitable to understand.

The first thing they saw on entering the paired Fighter-Sacrifice dorms was Sougo and Kagura in the middle of a heated fistfight in the corridor. Several floorboards and a good section of the nearby wall joined the already long and still growing casualty list as they watched. Hijikata made to pull the pair apart, only to be stopped by his Sacrifice. "They're having fun," Gintoki pointed out. Hijikata, noting the healthy flush on both teens' faces, shrugged and let it go.

"Would it be too much to hope their relationship hasn't progressed quite as far as ours has?" muttered Gintoki as they headed for their room, followed by the echoes of splintering wood and crashing brick.

Hijikata glanced sharply at the silver-haired Sacrifice. Before coming back, they had come to an agreement that whatever was going on between them (Hijikata still adamantly refused to call it _love_) was strictly private and would never be mentioned in public. Even with all the shit about Fighters and Sacrifices inevitably becoming an item, Hijikata didn't want to have to say it out loud or acknowledge it – it was rather like a "everyone knows so there's no need to say anything" kind of thing in his mind. The _outing_ was the embarrassing part now that the physical barrier was over with.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Gintoki had a rather different attitude towards the agreement. The moment they reached the room, the silver-haired Sacrifice pushed Hijikata down to one of the beds (Gintoki's, it so happened. Hijikata knew because it didn't have the familiar smell of cigarette smoke that was by now an integral part of his own bed).

"Bastard, what do you think you're doing?" hissed the younger Fighter. "The walls here are cheap plywood! The whole dorm will hear us if you – ah!"

Gintoki had pulled Hijikata's kimono apart and was ravishing his bared nipples with evident relish. Hijikata took a few deep breaths, partly in an attempt to calm himself down after the surprise assault, partly to stave off the moan that was threatening to make itself heard. "You son of a bitch, I swear I'll kill you," he growled. "I only relearned how to walk in a straight line this morning!"

"Mmhmm…" Gintoki transferred his attentions to the dark-haired Fighter's neck, sucking and biting in a way that was sure to leave a giant hickey when they were done. "Well, you can always learn again."

"Oh dear, I didn't realize I would be… intruding," drawled a familiar voice. "To think you'd have gotten down to business so soon after returning. I thought you only came back five minutes ago."

Hijikata twisted his head as Gintoki shifted above him. In the open doorway was the unmistakable figure of Takasugi, clad in his usual brightly-patterned kimono and holding a smoking pipe in one hand. Behind him was Katsura (nobody else had such long hair now that Hijikata had cut his). Takasugi appeared highly amused, while Katsura looked quite expressionless as far as Hijikata could see (which wasn't very much, considering the unfavorable angle). Instinctively, Hijikata scrabbled at the blankets in a vain attempt to hide.

"My, my, Gintoki, so you've finally decided to overcome those stupid inhibitions of yours," commented the one-eyed teacher, still with that faintly-gloating air that seriously pissed Hijikata off. "I've been telling you since – when? It's the law of Fighter-Sacrifice pairs, to become lovers. You get stronger that way. My expectations of you will increase accordingly. Good day to you." The door slid shut, leaving a very flustered Hijikata and a relatively unshaken Gintoki.

"He didn't care at all," said Gintoki in a would-be reassuring manner, prying his Fighter's hands from the now-torn sheets. "Like he said, it's practically a law. Nobody could care less about Fighters and Sacrifices having a good steamy make-out session."

"_I_ care," retorted Hijikata, _not_-petulantly. "I have no intention of becoming an exhibitionist, so if you would kindly get yourself off –" He blinked, then hurriedly rephrased himself as Gintoki smirked. "Off _of_ me, that is, you perverted bastard!"

"Hmm… but we're already in the right place, and the packing can wait, right?" The silver-haired Sacrifice leaned down, connecting their lips and delving in with his tongue. When they broke apart, he added, "It's not like you don't like me either. If you didn't, why would you have let me screw you – what, fifty times over the past week?"

"Horny pervert," accused Hijikata, nonetheless not bothering to fend off Gintoki's wandering hands as they slipped under his kimono and pulled his knees up so that they gripped his Sacrifice's waist. They _had_ had a lot of sex over the last few days, mostly due to Hijikata's mindset that if he'd consented to it once, his dignity wouldn't be much further affected by repetition.

"And that's why you love me," replied Gintoki blithely, now shamelessly pumping his Fighter's member under the kimono.

Suddenly, the door slammed open. "_Tosshi_!" exclaimed Kondou. "Takasugi-kun said something about you and Gintoki-kun having…" He trailed off, apparently rendered speechless by the scene before him. "Oh good _heavens_ Tosshi, you're getting fucked! And I haven't even lost my virginity yet!" he cried, at full volume.

Hijikata covered his face with his hands. Trust Kondou-sensei to react like that… and trust Takasugi to go spreading the news around to exactly the worst people. At least they weren't naked yet. There must be some god after all.

"What's going on?" "Who's getting screwed?" "Hey, you, you're underage! Shoo!" By the sudden mix of voices, a crowd was gathering. Hijikata shoved Gintoki away, quickly readjusting his kimono and lighting a cigarette in hope of reclaiming his poise if not his pride. Gintoki, meanwhile, rolled over to lie on his back, nonchalantly picking his nose even as the crowd grew bigger and louder.

"_Tosshi_!" lamented Kondou-sensei, now blubbering as though his favorite dog just died. "I'm sorry! What kind of upbringing must I have given to you? Oh, I had hoped that you at least were safe, even if Sougo does have odd interests –"

"I think he raped Kagura and chained her up somewhere public," muttered Gintoki. "You better pay reparations to me for damage. I'm still her employer."

"Yeah, in name only. And you've had plenty of payment in advance, so forget about getting more," sniped Hijikata, knowing there wasn't much hope in defending Sougo. The brunette _did_ have strange fetishes. Come to think of it, he wasn't too sure if both of them still had their cat-features, earlier in the corridor when they were fighting…

""Whoa, Hijikata, you've finally become a man," remarked an extremely recognizable monotonous voice. "Or should I say, a woman? I always thought you'd be the female in your relationship with boss there."

A red shape hurtled into the room, crashing onto the bed, which creaked and groaned most pitifully. "Gin-chan! You're back! And you're not covered in mayonnaise! Sougo said you'll become a mayora like the Original Mayora over there!"

"Hell no, I still want to eat my parfaits; I'm not gonna convert to dog food anytime soon," declared Gintoki, looking decidedly green around the gills at the very idea.

"What did you say about my mayonnaise?" demanded Hijikata in a way that all but screamed _if-you-insult-my-mayonnaise-you-won't-be-getting-any-sex-for-a-month_ in bright red capitals.

"Ah – hm, well, I said nothing at all, just that I've been missing my regular parfaits. You know, nobody makes parfaits quite like the school cooks," said his Sacrifice, laughing very loudly and very forcedly. "Nobody said anything about mayonnaise, huh, Kagura?"

"No, I'm happy you're not going to become a mayora!" replied the China-girl brightly. "One is more than enou-" Before she could finish her sentence, Gintoki clamped a hand on her mouth and threw her out of the room.

Sougo stepped aside and let her crash through the door of the opposite room. "Boss, I'm just here to say that I haven't done anything to her… yet." An ominous grin, accompanied by a significant wave of his tail, and Sougo shut the door. The pair in the room could hear him saying, "Yeah, well, the two in there are going at it like rabbits, I'd say it's M-18 at the very least, but seriously it's nothing worth watching. Kondou-sensei, it's time for lunch; let's go."

As the crowd dispersed and Kondou's noisy sobbing receded, Hijikata strangled the air. "I'm going to kill Sougo. I really will. _Rabbits_! What the fuck?"

"Well, we haven't quite started it here, but we were definitely - to quote – 'going at it like rabbits' back in Tokyo," said Gintoki fairly. "And actually, we maybe should thank him. Now we can carry out our business undisturbed."

The dark-haired Fighter slapped away his Sacrifice's hands as they tried to sneak around his waist. "After I finish my smoke."

"Come on, I'm better than a cigarette, aren't I?" whined Gintoki.

Hijikata grinned. "Not by much."

"Huh. I don't know why I put up with all this," grumbled the older male, flopping back onto his back.

"You don't?" Swiftly, the younger Fighter reached over to tweak Gintoki's not-quite-limp member. As though he had flicked a switch, the said organ snapped to attention like a soldier, straining visibly against the constraints of his clothes. Gintoki let out a gasp of surprise and unmistakable lust as his eyes turned that familiar shade of red.

"Holy fuck, I do remember!" There was a flurry of movement, ending with Hijikata on his back, pinned to the bed under Gintoki's body, his cigarette stubbed out and forgotten on the floor. Those blood-crimson eyes glowed down at him. "'Course I remember."

Hijikata grinned up at his Sacrifice, having angled for this exact outcome. "Better be quick, or we won't be in time for lunch."

Gintoki grinned right back. "Who cares about lunch?"

As arousal and desire once again washed over him, Hijikata decided, perhaps _this_ was what was meant by being _Unfettered – _living by their own rules, and not caring if their own rules sometimes coincided with others' rules.

_x x_

**OWARI**

_x x_

_This fic is dedicated to Kid9535_

**A/N: Uhm. Well. This was actually my first attempt at writing a true lemon, even though I uploaded another one earlier (PoT fandom, Perfect Pair). I guess lemons need practice, which is why these probably weren't that great. They're harder than they seem, seriously. I don't know how many M-rates from various fandoms I've read over the past couple of weeks trying to get into the right mood and come up with plausible ideas for the lemons here; I wrote and rewrote these at least twice, which is why I'm so late even though I promised I'd update early. Gah. I feel sooooo polluted. T.T**

**Hmm… I really hope they weren't too OOC, especially Gintoki. He strikes me as a pervert (like duh) but he does try not to be too overt about it. So, erm, basically the lemons are down to Gintoki's horniness? And Hijikata seems unusually sentimental here too… I dunno… I figured they just needed some nice lemony bonding, and this is what came out. And the conclusion was pretty crappy too. Please don't flame me! –ducks rotten tomatoes–**

**Anyways this is the end of this fic! It was originally meant to be a oneshot, but somehow it grew into this huge four-shot monster that is ****just barely 60 pages long in my complete Word document. Whoa. And my other Loveless-verse ficcy is only 25 pages long. This is my longest short-fic… O.o how ironic. Must be the whole exams-forbidden-fruit-effect thing… I seem to become more prolific during exams than during free time –shot– But with 'O's just 'round the corner, I guess I'd better nail my ass to the chair and lock my computer up in my mother's safe and get down to work, so this will probably be the last we see of each other (all readers and reviewers, Kid included =D). Do send in a review to let me know what you thought of this! I really appreciate feedback, especially since this is one of the few full-fledged lemons I've written!**

**Just as a little tidbit, I thought I'd add a verse from **_**Shura**_** by 'Does', one of the ending themes for Gintama. It's translated, for obvious reasons.**

_One: please somebody__  
__Two: blow out my fire__  
__Three: and let me fly off__  
__Four: Yeah, yeah_

**I thought this verse suited this chapter, if not the whole fic. Yeah. Thanks for reading this super long A/N X.x**

**Please ****review****!**


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